White House Privately Signaling Support For House Passing Senate Bill With Fix, Aides Say

[ProSense]

White House Privately Signaling Support For House Passing Senate Bill With Fix, Aides Say

White House aides have privately told Dem Congressional aides that the White House supports the House passing the Senate health reform bill with a reconciliation fix, something that could give a bit more momentum to that approach, according to two Congressional staffers familiar with the discussions.

The private communications will lend a bit of cheer to those who had hoped the White House would use its heft to help Congress break its logjam by endorsing a specific route to getting reform done.

Obama and the White House have not publicly stated a preference on how they’d like Congressional Dems to proceed. But White House aides have privately made it clear to the Dem leadership that they support the approach many Dems are coalescing behind: The House passing the Senate bill, with fixes made by the Senate via reconciliation, the sources say.

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It’s unclear whether Obama himself has privately communicated support for this option directly to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. And White House aides have not inserted themselves directly into discussions about the procedural obstacles to doing it, one of the aides says.

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[Dawgs]

1. They better add the public option if they go with reconciliation.

A lot of us won't be happy if they don't.

[IndianaGreen]

2. The Senate bill is crap. This is the only way to get any HCR passed, having the Senate accept House

changes. The question remains as to whether anyone in the House can trust the Senate.

[ProSense]

3. You can repeat that until you're blue in the face, with some fixes

to bring it in line with the best elements of the House bill, it will be the bill that passes.

The bills are 95 percent similar.

[karynnj]

4. There's another possibility

What if OBAMA publicly says that he will not sign the main bill until the reconciliation bill is passed. Obama needs the support of both Houses so it is very unlikely that he would ignore the promise. That way, if either the President or the Senate can be trusted, it's ok.

In addition, I think the majority of the Democrats desperately want those fixes as they can solve some political problems of the main bill.