Hillarysworld

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Dems vow to resurrect health care bill

Erica Werner, The Associated Press, January 27, 2010

Giving up on overhauling the nation's health care system is not an option, the top House Democrat said Wednesday as lawmakers looked to President Barack Obama for guidance in his State of the Union address on how to revive the stalled legislation.

Asked if Congress might abandon a health care initiative beset with political and policy problems, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded: "I don't see that as a possibility. We will have something."

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told congressional staff that Obama will use Wednesday night's address to reiterate his commitment to an ambitious remake of the nation's health care system, similar to the call he issued last September after critics seized the momentum during a summer of angry town hall meetings.

Although lawmakers don't expect to hear a specific prescription for how to move forward, Pfeiffer said the president would offer "additional details" on his health care goals.

The speech comes as Democrats are struggling to find a way to advance health care legislation after the loss of a Massachusetts Senate seat last week cost them the 60-vote majority needed to deliver.

"The president is a strong persuader, as they say, and I think it makes an awful lot of difference, and I think he will bring everybody together," said Rep. John Larson, D-Conn.

Others were looking for a dose of reality from the president.

"I think he has to acknowledge that the well has been poisoned, that the debate has been lost, and tell the American people again why this is part of the economic strategy moving forward," said Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa. "Not an issue of fairness because we need to cover everybody, but it's the only way we're going to get our deficit in order in the long run is by addressing health care."

Democrats got encouragement Wednesday from groups as diverse as the nation's Catholic bishops and the head of the largest labor union federation. In a letter to members of Congress, the bishops urged lawmakers to "recommit themselves to enacting genuine health care reform."

"The health care debate, with all its political and ideological conflict, seems to have lost its central moral focus and policy priority, which is to ensure that affordable, quality, life-giving care is available to all," said clergy from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "Now is not the time to abandon this task."

Similarly, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said the Senate should come up with a measure that the House can pass. "We fought too long and too hard for health care to quit for now," Trumka said in an interview.

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