Signs point to a done deal, and the White House says health care reform will soon be the law of the land. But the Democrats are, well, Democrats. The long slog toward passing a final health care bill has been met with potholes and partisan shenanigans. Deadlines came and went.
Confident Democratic leaders say they are nearing the end, and Republicans are resigned to the idea that the bill will pass and that their focus will soon turn toward campaigning against it. But that’s not to say it’s over yet. From gambling on a favorable ruling from the Senate parliamentarian to last-ditch messaging successes on the Republican side that gums up the expected House vote, there are plenty of potential pitfalls. We’ve given it some thought, and while these things are unlikely, here are the top five things that could go wrong between now and President Obama penning his signature on a health care bill.
I posed the question to several members today on Capitol Hill, and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) summed it up. I asked, “Could something go wrong in the next week?” Blumenauer lauged: “This is Congress. You answered your own question.”
In no particular order, here are some of the possibilities.
Whoops! The votes aren’t there in the House
While this would kill reform in swift fashion, it’s also the least likely scenario. House Democrats aren’t going to bring a bill to the floor they don’t have the votes to pass. But where they could run into trouble is if rank-and-file Democrats start to buy into Republican claims that the procedure leadership chooses for getting the bill done isn’t fair or smacks of a backroom deal. Yesterday, Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) suggested as much.
Whoops! The votes aren’t there in the Senate
They only need 50 plus Vice President Joe Biden to break a tie, but as we’ve seen in this yearlong fight it is not always that easy. Several Senate Democrats have expressed reservations over the next vote. They’re probably close to it, but sometimes those whip counts aren’t as robust as they initially seem. This will be a critical question in the coming days.
Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) have already pushed back from the table, and others could follow. Lincoln already said she doesn’t like the procedural moves in the House. Bayh is retiring and could throw a wrench in the plans and insist the Senate have a bipartisan bill. He also has complaints about the student loan provision that might be included in the final product. (See below) Then again, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) could always come back into the fold.
I asked Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) about this earlier, and he scolded me and the rest of the press for looking for problems when things look so certain. But he did concede that there was “no question” the Senate has the votes to pass the reconciliation measure and that “there would be no way for this to happen” without Senate leadership giving reassurances to frazzled House Democrats who don’t always trust the upper chamber.
Parliamentary problems
The bigger risk is something we’ve been writing about a lot in recent weeks. It is not clear that the Senate parliamentarian will agree that the bill the House Democrats will reveal any minute actually fits within the narrowly tailored reconciliation rules.
The White House helped craft that measure with those reconciliation rules in mind, but anything is possible and Republicans say they are going to raise points of order against as many elements as they can. They aren’t likely to win those battles, but it puts the brakes on momentum. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) told Brian earlier today he isn’t sure that everything in the bill will pass the reconciliation test.
Student loans, in a health care bill?
Rep. George Miller (D-CA) is chairman of the Education panel and is going full-speed ahead at including student loan reforms in the final reconciliation package. It’s a popular measure with some GOP support that sweetens the vote on health care – in the House. It originally passed 253-171, with six Republicans voting for it. Democrats tell me that so far they aren’t sure the votes are there in the Senate. Wary aides said they fear a repeat of the process that played out in the Senate last fall, with individual senators having the ability to gum up the works and every vote is critical. One aide told me that element “complicates the math” in the Senate.
Expect the unexpected
Blumenauer had it right, anything is possible with Congress. Unexpected retirements, illness or scandal have the potential to change the numbers need to pass a bill at any moment.
As the Democrats race the clock before Obama leaves on an (already delayed) international trip to Indonesia, Guam and Australia Sunday, there’s also the possibility the timing might not work out. The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward had a piece today with Democrats suggesting Obama shouldn’t be too celebratory about the vote in the House this weekend before he boards Air Force One. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) warned that the American people can’t think the health care fight is over, since the bill would head over to the Senate before it’s passed in its final form.
As of this writing, the Congressional Budget Office score isn’t out. Undecided members say they want to see the language before they announce final votes. So if the numbers don’t bear out and cut the deficit as much as leaders had promised, that could cause some trouble.
