WASHINGTON — As Senate Democrats continued their quest Thursday to round up 60 votes for a sweeping health care bill, a frustrated Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, suggested someday lowering the vote threshold.
Senate rules require 60 votes to end a filibuster, which currently means Democrats need the support of all members of their caucus if Republicans are united in opposition. Harkin hinted that he might revive a years-old proposal of his to eliminate the ability of senators to filibuster indefinitely, something that would mean legislation could be passed with a simple majority vote.
Harkin said the filibuster rules allow a single senator to exert enormous influence, and a couple of senators within the Democratic caucus have taken a “my way or the highway position” on health care — an apparent reference to Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut.
Harkin called that an abuse and said many senators, himself included, must come to terms with disappointments over the health care bill.
“To sort of lay down an ultimatum, ‘Well, it’s got to be this or nothing and I’m walking away from it,’ well, that’s not the way you do legislation,” Harkin said.
In response, Nelson spokesman Jake Thompson said the senator has “a different point of view.”
Nelson has said he has concerns about many provisions in the legislation, including certain excise taxes, its approach to restrictions on federal funding for abortion coverage and the creation of a new government insurance plan.
Nelson and Harkin both have been part of a group of 10 Senate Democrats — liberals and moderates — trying to hammer out a compromise on the government insurance plan, or public option.
The group struck a tentative deal Tuesday, but several senators said they aren’t sold yet. And the group is staying officially mum while the Congressional Budget Office analyzes the costs.
Harkin said the reason for secrecy is that the budget office will keep an analysis confidential as long as the details of the proposal have not been publicly released. The negotiating group wants the opportunity to make changes after seeing the initial analysis, he said.
“Whenever the details get out early … you get all the lobbyists here in Washington and all the groups around the country in a dither, and that makes it harder to strike a deal,” Harkin said.
Still, some information has leaked out.
The compromise drops a full-blown government health plan. Instead, the proposal calls for the same federal agency that negotiates health insurance for federal workers and members of Congress to administer national nonprofit plans to the public.
In addition, Medicare, currently for those age 65 and up, would be offered to people who are at least 55 and wished to buy coverage.
That provision could ensure loss of support of Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, the only Senate Republican to support the Democratic health care bill in committee.
Snowe said Thursday that expanding Medicare is “the wrong direction,” citing concerns that the program’s payment rates, which are low compared with private insurers, would hurt hospitals and doctors.
Nelson also has expressed reservations about the Medicare expansion, and so has Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb.
Johanns said Thursday that Medicare is projected to be bankrupt by 2017. “Adding more people to a system that’s headed toward insolvency so quickly doesn’t make any fiscal sense whatsoever.”
This report includes material from the Associated Press.
