Obama steps up health care pressure

Tells Democrats it’s time to bypass GOP objections



WASHINGTON - President Obama increased the pressure on Congress yesterday to take an up-or-down vote on his health care package, calling on Senate Democrats to bypass a Senate filibuster and revive the stalled legislation over the objections of Republicans.
Despite polls that signal that strategy holds dangers for Democrats, the president is gambling that the voters who sent him to office want action on health care and share his impatience with inaction in Washington.

“I do not know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right,’’ Obama said, adding that he would leave it to pundits and others to speculate on how muscling through a bill would affect Democratic fortunes in the fall congressional elections.

The president did not utter the words “budget reconciliation,’’ shorthand for the parliamentary tactic used to attach legislation to a budget bill that can pass by a simple majority of 51 votes, rather than the 60 needed to overcome an expected GOP filibuster. But his demand for the controversial option was clear, and many Democrats consider it their only hope to pass a sweeping health care overhaul.

“We have debated this issue thor oughly, not just for the past year but for decades,’’ the frustrated president told an assemblage of sympathetic invited guests - some of them in white lab coats - at the White House.

Obama ticked off a variety of other initiatives that previously have been passed by majority parties using budget reconciliation in the Senate, including welfare reform and tax cuts.

Despite precedent, it remained unclear yesterday if leaders in Congress have the will or the votes needed to push a bill through either chamber, or if leaders were ready to risk the potential wrath of voters in their home states.

Obama’s comments, the strongest public tactical direction he has offered in the 15-month battle over health care overhaul, were welcomed by Democrats, some of whom have been grousing privately that Obama needed to show more leadership. Republicans routinely use the filibuster to stall legislation and nominations, even noncontroversial bills, said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island.

“This is just a dead-end road to keep going down,’’ Whitehouse said. While using reconciliation takes away a protection for the minority party, “when you do hit a new low, it is sometimes an opportunity to hit the reset button.’’

But Republicans insist that Democratic incumbents will be punished at the ballot box if they resort to budget reconciliation to win such a large and controversial government program. Proponents of the filibuster rules say it is an important check on majority power in Washington.

“They’ve had enough of this yearlong effort to get a win for the Democratic Party at any price to the American people,’’ Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on the Senate floor

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