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Tags: obama | health | care | reform | november | brown | elections.

Obama Concedes Healthcare Overhaul May Be Shelved Until November Elections

Friday, 05 February 2010 12:55 PM EST

President Barack Obama is vowing not to quit in his quest for a healthcare overhaul, but he’s also conceding for the first time that his signature legislative issue may ultimately be decided by the November congressional elections.

Speaking to Democrats at a fundraiser Thursday night, Obama acknowledged his healthcare overhaul may die in Congress. His tone at times verged on defeatist. Even while saying he still wanted to get the job done, Obama bowed to new political realities.

Democrats no longer command a filibuster-proof Senate majority, and voters and lawmakers are far more concerned with jobs and the economy than with enacting sweeping and expensive changes to the health system.

“…I think it’s very important for us to have a methodical, open process over the next several weeks, and then let’s go ahead and make a decision,” Obama said. “And it may be that if Congress decides, if Congress decides we’re not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not.

“And that’s how democracy works, and there will be elections coming up and they will be able to make a determination and register their concerns one way or another during election time.”

Obama spoke at a Democratic National Committee fund-raising reception at which he sought to boost the morale of party loyalists in the wake of the Democrats' loss of a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate when Republican Scott Brown won in Massachusetts last week.

At one point, as the president insisted that he would continue to fight for the healthcare bill, the crowd chanted, “Yes, we can! Yes, we can!”

Despite their enthusiasm, though, it is no longer clear that Senate leaders could muster even 51 votes to make fast-tracked changes to the Senate-passed health bill, let alone the 60 votes it would take to approve a revised measure under the normal rules, The New York Times pointed out.

In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, too, now faces an uphill climb. The toughest differences are those that separate Senate and House Democrats, disagreements that were in the process of being resolved when the election in Massachusetts upended the entire process. House Democrats, for instance, still fiercely oppose a proposed tax on high-cost, employer-sponsored insurance policies that Senate Democrats included in their bill and that Obama has said he supports.

Speaking at the first of two events that together raised between $2 million and $3 million for the party, Obama said he did not want Democrats to "feel discouraged" but rather keep up the fight against "the forces of the status quo."

"We're going to finish what we started because we do not back down. We don't quit. I don't quit. I'm still fired up, I'm still ready to go, and it's because of you," Obama said.

Obama has seen healthcare, his top legislative priority, become subject of a prolonged stalemate in the U.S. Congress. Legislation passed separately by the House of Representatives and the Senate have yet to be reconciled and Brown's election meant Republicans would be able to engage in procedural blocking tactics to keep it from passing.

Meantime, Obama and his Democrats have been put on the defensive by Americans angry and frustrated at the 10 percent jobless rate, bank bailouts and high deficit spending.

Obama said he wanted to see congressional passage of a multibillion-dollar jobs bill and would like to use $30 billion in repaid bank bailout funds for small business loans.

But he said America's healthcare system is in need of a revamp and he wants to see the process through. He said he wanted Republicans and Democrats to bring their best ideas forward over the next several weeks to determine whether the deadlock can be broken.

His remarks amounted to a challenge to Republicans to suggest areas of a healthcare overhaul that they could support rather than simply opposing legislation. A bipartisan meeting is planned for next week.

"Let's just go through these bills, their ideas, our ideas, let's walk through them in a methodical way so that the American people can see and compare, what makes the most sense. And then I think we have to go ahead and move forward on a vote," he said.

© 2025 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

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Headline
President Barack Obama is vowing not to quit in his quest for a healthcare overhaul, but he s also conceding for the first time that his signature legislative issue may ultimately be decided by the November congressional elections. Speaking to Democrats at a fundraiser...
obama,health,care,reform,november,brown,elections.
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2010-55-05
Friday, 05 February 2010 12:55 PM
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