Dems use Obama’s speech as rallying point for reform

Republicans continued to lambaste the president’s plan.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

WASHINGTON — A day after President Barack Obama went to Capitol Hill to renew his call for a sweeping health overhaul, Democrats across the ideological spectrum rallied behind him, giving important new momentum to the push for legislation this year.

Especially important for the White House was the reaction of several conservative Democrats, who will be critical to passing a health-care bill in the House and Senate and who cheered the president’s pledge to ensure a health overhaul would not add to the government debt.

“If the details live up to the quality of the speech, then it’s a good plan,” said Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper, a conservative Democrat who has been highly critical of the liberal health-care bill developed by House Democratic leaders.

On the left, liberal lawmakers and interest groups who have grown increasingly anxious about the fate of a proposed new government insurance plan applauded Obama for forcefully endorsing the idea Wednesday night, even though he said he was open to alternatives.

“The president last night spoke to the conscience of America,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., one of the chamber’s most liberal members who also heads the Congressional Black Caucus. “He talked about this being a moral imperative, an issue of social justice. And believe me, that resonated.” Labor unions, which have bristled at proposals to tax high value health plans like those provided under some union contracts, held their fire even as Obama suggested such an approach in his speech.

“I take the president at his word that he does not want to raise taxes on the middle class,” said Andy Stern, the influential head of the Service Employees International Union.

And the liberal grass-roots powerhouse MoveOn. Org, which over the summer targeted numerous centrist Democrats, turned its fire on Rep. Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican who called Obama a liar during the president’s address.

Most Republican leaders Thursday continued to lambaste Obama’s health care plan. “It sounded very much like the Chicago politics that I know he’s familiar with,” said Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. “It appeared as if he was trying to ram something through.” Privately, however, some Republicans worried that the party’s unremitting opposition to the Democratic plans could boomerang in next year’s congressional elections, especially if a far-reaching plan is finally approved.

To build on Obama’s rhetoric, Democratic leaders still must swiftly show progress moving health care bills through the House and Senate, by no means an easy task.

Obama’s speech did not settle some of the most contentious questions bedeviling that effort, including the public option and the details of any new taxes and fees that may be necessary to pay for a major expansion in coverage.

Nor did the president succeed in smoothing out all the divisions in his party.

Underscoring persistent tensions between House Democrats and their Senate colleagues, House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., a key architect of the House health care bill, Thursday derided the Senate legislative effort.

“I wouldn’t spend a lot of time on what the Senate is thinking. They are not thinking, quite frankly,” Rangel said. “One thing we don’t have responsibility (for) is to check with the other body.” Still, if Obama did not achieve total unity in his own party, he did make progress after weeks in which divisions between liberal and conservative Democrats widened.

the House and the Senate dominated the news and appeared to threaten the president’s health care campaign.

Before the August recess, conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats in the House nearly blocked an important committee from advancing the party’s health care bill.

And in the Senate, liberal lawmakers have been fuming at efforts by Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., to craft a health care bill conservative enough to win substantial Republican support.

The effective end of Baucus’ push this week helped defuse some of that tension. But Obama’s speech also gave important rhetorical nods to both wings of his party.

For liberals, Obama concluded with an evocative invocation of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. For more conservative lawmakers, the president talked not just of fiscal responsibility but repeatedly stressed the need for bipartisanship, a talking point critical to congressional Democrats from states and districts full of Republicans and independents.

“He clearly and appropriately opened the door to negotiations with Republican members,” said Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va.

Obama and his budget director Peter Orszag met at the White House with 16 mostly centrist Democrats and one independent to press the case for action on health care and reassure them about his commitment to making any bill deficit neutral.

“We talked a lot about how we are going to pay for this,” said Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., who attended the meeting. “And I think we are well on the way to finding the right mixture of mechanisms to pay.” Vice President Joe Biden also traveled to the Capitol to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus, a key block of liberal votes in the House. After the meeting, members of the caucus said Biden reiterated the administration’s support for creating a new government insurance option.

At the same time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also met with groups of Democratic lawmakers to help build consensus for action.

“The speech is just a beginning. It has to be followed up with more efforts by the White House to stress the importance of acting now,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the conservative Blue Dog caucus. “But we all hope this is a turning point.”

Staff writers Richard Simon, Janet Hook and Peter Nicholas contributed to this report.