House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday President Obama will soon propose a health care bill that will be "much smaller" than the House bill but "big enough" to put the country on a "path" toward health care reform.
A senior administration official told Fox Obama's proposal will be introduced Wednesday.
"In a matter of days, we will have a proposal," Pelosi said, pointing to Obama's forthcoming bill. "It will be a much smaller proposal than we had in the House bill, because that's where we can gain consensus. But it will be big enough to put us on a path of affordable, quality health care for all Americans that holds insurance companies accountable."
Melody Barnes, a top Obama domestic policy adviser, did not dispute Pelosi's characterization of the new plan as smaller in scope - and quite possibly in cost - than either the House or Senate health care bills.
Republicans prepare for the reconciliation battle, via Roll Call:
With President Barack Obama set to green-light the use of reconciliation to pass health care legislation, Senate Republicans are preparing to wage a unified floor and message war to block this 51-vote strategy — and lay the groundwork for what they hope will be big electoral gains in November.
Senate Republicans have already set the messaging component in motion, saying reconciliation would subvert the will of the American people. Still under development is the legislative strategy, which Republicans hope will tie the majority party in knots and force vulnerable Democrats to take politically damaging votes — if it doesn’t derail reconciliation altogether.
“We’ll do everything we can to try to defeat it,” Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) said Monday.
Forcing vulnerable Democrats to take individual votes and publicly go against their constituents, instead of allowing it happen behind closed doors, will guarantee even more than the double digit gains already expected in November for House seats and quite possibly hand Republicans more in the Senate than was previously projected.
Pelosi has already said that Democratic lawmakers should be willing to "sacrifice" their jobs by voting for Obamacare against their constituent's wishes.
Looks like some might just do that too.
Then again, the far left liberal Democrats in the House, aren't thrilled with anything considered "scaled back" and the focus on those that previously voted no, might be premature.
The problem may come from those that previously voted yes to the House's original bill and that have said they will vote no if the Senate's version is voted on.
.
.
