President Obama told ABC News today that the Senate will not attempt to pass health care reform before Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) is sworn in.
“Here’s one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn’t try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated,” Obama said. “People in Massachusetts spoke. He’s got to be part of that process.”
He also urged people to look at the “substance” of the health care bill.
“It is very important to look at the substance of this package and for the American people to understand that a lot of the fear mongering around this bill isn’t true,” he said.
“I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment … Those are the core, some of the core elements of, to this bill,” Obama said.
Asked about Obama’s comments, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House still doesn’t have a concrete plan on how to move forward with health care.
“There are a lot of different paths forward. We’ll get an opportunity in the coming hours or days to know exactly what that path is,” he said.
Democratic leaders said this morning they would not try to pass a merged health care bill before Brown is sworn in.
There are other options: The House could pass the Senate bill verbatim, and then lawmakers could make changes through a budget reconciliation process. And at least one Democrat, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA), has suggested breaking the health care bill into smaller pieces of legislation and vote on them one by one.
Obama also said that his election and Brown’s were the products of the same public sentiment.
“The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office,” he said. “People are angry, they are frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”
