There was a marathon negotiating session yesterday at the White House on the healthcare bill, that lasted more than eight hours. While the President was not present throughout (he “also spent time monitoring and coordinating the response to the crisis in Haiti”), “participants said he was in the room for hours.”
However, it’s not clear that much progress was really made towards bridging House and Senate differences over what should go into the compromise bill and what should get left out.
Politico — in a bizarre statement that’s neither news nor analysis — asserts:
…the marathon session signaled that House and Senate leaders — with the president in the room for much of the day — were far closer to resolution on the issues that have divided the two chambers for months.
The logic of that statement totally escapes me. Because the session went on so long, that signals that the House and Senate are somehow close to a resolution?
At the end of the day, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid issued a fairly bland significant-progress-was-made statement:
Today we made significant progress in bridging the remaining gaps between the two health insurance reform bills. We’re encouraged and energized, and we’re resolved to deliver reform legislation that provides more stability and security for those with insurance, extends coverage to those who don’t have coverage, and lowers costs for families, businesses, and governments.
The negotiations continue today. Too early to tell if we should be saying to ourselves “Miles to go before we sleep”, or “Miles to go before we weep”.
What is clear, though, is that Republicans are extremely encouraged and energized, in their determined effort to derail reform and deny coverage to millions of Americans who are currently uninsured.
The Washington Post brings us Boehner:
Noting the … measure’s sagging support in public opinion polls and concern among House Democrats that they may be forced to swallow some unpopular provisions supported by the Senate, Republicans boasted Wednesday that they still have a good chance to derail the health-care legislation, which would spend about $900 billion over the next decade to extend insurance to as many as 36 million Americans.
“The bottom line is, I believe we can beat this bill,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told GOP lawmakers at a meeting Wednesday morning. “The American people are with us.”
The WSJ quotes Cantor, instead:
Republicans, meanwhile, planned to court Democrats in a last-ditch effort to stop the bill. They are targeting 37 Democrats from conservative districts they hope are susceptible to switching sides.
“We’re going to go about the next week to two weeks, whenever it is, doing whatever we can to bring the members in the middle on the other side over to us,” said Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican. “This health-care bill can be defeated,” he said.