http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...-close-health/
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ordered committee chairmen to postpone their hearings Thursday so lawmakers can meet to chart a course for one last sales job on President Obama's signature health care overhaul.
Whether it's expanding Medicaid or Medicare, tax-funded abortion service, special kickbacks for resistant lawmakers or the untallied costs, none of the unanswered questions has left Democratic leaders from insisting a deal is near.
"Decision time is here, and that's it," Pelosi said in a Wednesday briefing with reporters, adding that the House and Senate bills are 75 percent the same.
Earlier in the day, Pelosi suggested to the National Association of Counties that the bill must be passed before the details are all sorted out.
"We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy," she told local executives.
related links
The bill has no price tag yet, only estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Democrats are hoping the provisions being cobbled together stay around $950 billion over 10 years. Leaders plan to begin reading the bill to rank-and-file Democrats at a caucus meeting Thursday.
Dozens of hearings in the House were postponed so Democrats could meet, including a hearing on the 2011 budget's impact on jobs, training and education, the status of the Federal Housing Administration, which provides mortgage insurance on home loans, and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget meeting -- and that's just in the Appropriations Committee.
Pelosi also canceled her weekly press conference with reporters.
Democratic lawmakers -- both the 'public option'-supporting liberals and moderates who say they've enough votes to stop the bill unless it bans taxpayer-funded abortions -- are being pushed by leadership to act by March 18, the deadline set by President Obama for a House vote before he leaves on a six-day trip to Indonesia, Guam and Australia.
Obama has kept up campaign-style appearances designed to fire up public support. He heads to northeastern Ohio on Monday for an appearance near the hometown of an uninsured cancer patient named Natoma Canfield, whom the president has made a symbol of the need for reform.
It will be Obama's third event on health care in a week. In St. Charles, Mo., on Wednesday, Obama shouted to a crowd: "The time for talk is over. It's time to vote."
Obama invited members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to meet with him Thursday at the White House to discuss the health legislation.
A closed-door meeting in Pelosi's office Wednesday evening moved congressional leaders and administration officials close to agreement on such issues as additional subsidies to help lower-income families purchase health insurance and more aid for states under the Medicaid program for low-income Americans.
"We're going to get started," Pelosi, D-Calif., said after her meeting with Reid, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other key officials. Some unanswered questions remain, Pelosi said, "but we're hoping that we'll get those answered over the course of the reading. It's not much."
"I'm very pleased about where we are," she added.
Almost every American would be affected by the legislation, which would change the ways people receive and pay for health care, from the most routine checkup to the most expensive, lifesaving treatment.
Critics say the legislation is designed to expand coverage, but will do nothing about increasing care. And Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., warned Wednesday that mechanism to rescue the bill -- a process called reconciliation that aims to address the budget matters separately from the coverage issues -- is opposed by all 41 Republican senators.
"This is the response to the declaration of war," he told Fox News.
The current plan is for the House to approve the Senate-passed bill from late last year, despite serious objections to numerous provisions. Both chambers then would pass a second bill immediately, making changes in the first measure before both could take effect. The second bill would be debated under rules that bar a filibuster, meaning it could clear by majority vote in the Senate without Democrats needing the 60-vote supermajority now beyond their reach.
"Nobody likes the bill that is out there now. They are all going fix it, except that they are not going to be able to fix it. That's our point. So they shouldn't vote for a bill that they think is going to get fixed, because it isn't going to get fixed, at least in all of the ways they want it to," Kyl said.
Obama already has moved to eliminate a couple of special deals in the Senate bill that turned off voters when they became public, including extra Medicaid funding for Nebraska -- derided by critics as the "Cornhusker kickback."
Late Wednesday the White House said the president was pushing to strip out a number of deals that remain, possibly including a provision sought by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., providing Medicare coverage for residents of Libby, Mont., who suffer from asbestos-related illnesses because of a now-closed mining operation.
Pelosi and other House Democrats want to include Obama's proposed overhaul of the nation's student loan programs in the second, fix-it health care bill. The measure would require the Education Department to originate all student assistance loans, effectively eliminating a role for banks and other private lenders. That idea has run into opposition from several Senate Democrats.
Another issue was a demand from a dozen states for additional funds under Medicaid.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Another one Will? Pelosi wants to close down congress to pass healthcare.
I would think that the recent election would show them that we are watching their dog and pony show and do not like the results. I know some want change and I am not fundamentally against it, but I would think that a slower more rationally thought out process would be the way to go.
