Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s caucus is nervous.
It’s up to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to keep health care reform alive.
President Barack Obama is taking care of the outside game. Showing a passion that has been missing for too long, he’s out on the stump urging Americans to demand an up-or-down vote from Congress.
Pelosi is in charge of the inside game – to make sure that vote is a yes. The San Francisco Democrat will need to call on all her vaunted vote-corralling skills and to dip into the goodwill she has built over the years. Her legacy as speaker hangs in the balance.
Last November, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders herded the House to approve a health care bill 220-215, with only two votes to spare and the support of a lone Republican.
Her task now might be even tougher. She must persuade her rank-and-file to swallow the Senate version of the health care bill – and take it on faith that any objections will be mollified in a subsequent “reconciliation” bill they haven’t yet seen.
And her caucus is antsy. Some don’t trust the Senate. Anti-abortion Democrats are angry that the Senate bill includes less-restrictive abortion language than the House bill. Liberals are upset that the Senate measure doesn’t include a stronger government-overseen health plan to compete with private insurers.
Those issues, however, are sidelights compared with the essentials of extending coverage to millions of Americans, reining in insurance companies and starting to get health care costs under control.
Every House seat is on the November ballot, so many who are seeking re-election are hypersensitive to any vote that could hurt their prospects. They heard the public outrage over the “Cornhusker Kickback,” “Louisiana Purchase” and other special goodies in the Senate bill. They are only too aware that the health care bill is unpopular with a majority of the public – (a 10-percentage-point gap in the RealClearPolitics average of nine polls conducted last month).
The typical inside-the- Beltway speculation about whether Pelosi can pull off the vote is reaching a fever pitch. “Pelosi’s grip on House slips” Politico headlined a report Tuesday about the speaker being rebuffed more often in recent weeks.
Elsewhere, anonymous rank-and-file members are griping about Pelosi’s inner circle of “California liberals” who are in safe, gerrymandered seats and who expect vulnerable Democrats to fall in line.
In a speech Tuesday to the National Association of Counties, Pelosi correctly focused her health care remarks on the bigger picture – how the bill will help the vast majority of Americans.
“We stand at the doorstep of history, ready to realize a centuries-old dream …” she said. “We must have the courage, though, to get the job done.”
She’s right.
Instead of worrying about how a health care vote might play in their campaigns, Democrats should get a backbone. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and it is worth losing an election over.
If Democrats can’t produce a health care bill, many of their supporters will ask with ample justification: “Why does it matter which party is in charge?”
Pelosi needs to seize this moment and show that it does.