Playing hardball in the home stretch

March 17, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

With time and tempers short, everyone’s playing hardball in the drive to pass — or stop — President Barack Obama’s massive health-care legislation by the weekend.

Business groups are spending $1 million a day to depict the bill as a job killer in television ads in the home districts of 26 wavering House Democrats. A new ad barrage from supporters of the legislation went up Tuesday in 11 districts, some overlapping. And unions are threatening some of those lawmakers to come through for Obama — or pay the price in the fall elections.

Obama has summoned members to the White House one by one for private, face-to-face persuasion and also met larger groups. White House aides said he plans at least one more public health-care event this week, including remarks in Fairfax, Va., on Friday. Diverse administration resources are being employed: Even the Navy secretary is in the game.

“We here in Congress are giving a new meaning to March madness,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, an opponent of the legislation, said Tuesday.

At stake is a bill that would cover some 30 million uninsured people, end insurance practices such as denying coverage to those with a pre-existing conditions, require almost all Americans to get coverage by law and try to slow the cost of medical care nationwide. The comprehensive legislation could affect nearly every American, from those undergoing annual checkups to people facing major surgery.

Activists on both ends of the political spectrum are energized. Tea-party volunteers, who rallied Tuesday in Washington, are planning to flood congressional offices with e-mails opposing the legislation as a step toward socialism. And some on the political left have joined in calling for the bill’s defeat because it leaves out a federal-insurance option.

The sought-after Democrats — mainly moderates, but also a few liberals — are mostly trying to stay out of sight. They include 37 who voted against the bill last year and a smaller number who are having second thoughts after supporting it the first time. Walking briskly, lawmakers duck in and out of the House chamber during votes, avoiding eye contact with reporters.