Congressional Democrats Resist Deadline For Health-Care Bill

By Patrick Yoest, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- House and Senate Democrats met Tuesday to discuss health-care legislation, as lawmakers said little to suggest that an upcoming deadline imposed by the White House for action on the bill will be effective.

The meeting was attended by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (D., Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, (D., Nev.), as well as other leaders and committee chairs. The two sides are hoping to come to an agreement on a strategy to pass Senate health-care legislation in the House and then pass a bill in both chambers that would make changes to the Senate bill.

The White House has stated that it hopes to see the House take action on the legislation by March 18. That deadline has seen scant support so far.

"Any talk of deadlines is an absolute waste of time," said Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D., ND). "Deadlines just don't work in the process."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said Tuesday his objective is to complete health-care legislation before Congress breaks for the Easter recess in just over two weeks.

But Hoyer stressed that date is "an objective and not a deadline." He said he hoped that by then the House will have passed both the sweeping health-care overhaul and the annual budget resolution setting out Congress's spending plans for the year.

When asked about getting health-care legislation done by the Easter recess, Pelosi said "that would be my hope," but she offered no guarantee.

In order to pass changes to the Senate health-care legislation, Democrats likely will have to employ a fast-track legislative tactic known as budget reconciliation. Under reconciliation, they only need a simple majority--51 votes or more--to pass legislation in the Senate.

House Democrats have pushed for assurances that the Senate will indeed take up a package of changes to the Senate-passed version of health-care legislation if the House passes the original Senate legislation. But Pelosi said Tuesday that lawmakers are "well beyond that" and are now focused on reviewing the total cost of the legislation with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

"We're way far down the road. It's not a question of confidence," Pelosi said. "It's a question of making sure those numbers are what we represent them to be. And to have that, we have to have validation from the CBO."

A coalition of business groups opposed to the legislation, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Retail Federation, announced plans Tuesday for a multimillion-dollar television ad campaign on the issue. U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive vice president of government affairs Bruce Josten said the ad would emphasize the importance of job creation, which he argued the health-care bill would stymie.

"We don't believe Washington got the message, so we're calling on viewers to tell Washington to stop this bill, simply because we can't afford to pay for it, " Josten said.

Josten added that the spot would call attention to Democrats' plans to use "a special rule to ram this trillion-dollar bill through"--a reference to budget reconciliation. Josten said the ad would be funded, in part, by the health- insurance industry.

While House Democrats face a big challenge in gathering enough votes to pass health-care legislation under reconciliation. One Senate Democrat on Tuesday suggested she would push back if the tactic is used. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, (D., Ark.) told reporters she continues to oppose reconciliation.

"I don't support reconciliation," Lincoln said. "All I said was I want to see what's in it."

Lincoln has consistently said she supported health-care legislation, and voted on a Senate version of the bill last year. But recent responses to questions about reconciliation have left her current thoughts on the issue unclear.

Lincoln, already facing a tough Republican challenge, has recently drawn a Democratic primary opponent in Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.

(Corey Boles contributed to this story)

-By Patrick Yoest, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-3554; patrick.yoest@ dowjones.com

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