It’s no secret that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t have an easy time rounding up the votes to pass Senate health care legislation. She’ll almost certainly have to convince members who voted “no” on the House bill last November to change their minds, and a number of in-play Democrats have said they’re not likely to budge.
At her weekly press conference this morning, Pelosi suggested that this is all part of the negotiations.
“When people think there isn’t going to be a bill, they can take whatever position they want,” Pelosi said. “But now they know there’s going to be a bill, and these members are saying, ‘let’s talk.'”
It should be noted that a number of House members who voted “no” in November have said they’ve made no decisions about the Senate bill.
And, indeed, leadership is pressing ahead with the legislative process. Earlier today, outside of a caucus meeting, Pelosi said Democrats had already drafted much of a reconciliation bill, meant to amend the Senate package, and sent “a bunch” of its legislative language to CBO.
Pelosi says she will wait until the final shape of the reconciliation fix is known–agreed to by the Senate–she’ll present it to her caucus, and round up the votes. With pro-life Democrats still threatening to oppose the bill over its abortion provision, that will be a slog. “How we do it is a hard problem that we will solve,” said Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ).
