President Barack Obama’s top Democratic allies in the US Congress reeled Wednesday from a shock election defeat but vowed to pursue efforts to remake US health care, his top domestic priority.
“First of all, we are not going to rush into anything,” Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid after Massachusetts voters elected a Republican to the chamber, ending the Democrats’ 60-vote supermajority.
Reid said the Senate would not act until senator-elect Scott Brown, who rode to victory on a wave of voter anger in painful economic times, was sworn in, giving Republicans 41 Senate seats and the ability to stall legislation.
But “in the coming year, we will ensure all Americans can access affordable health care, deny insurance companies the ability to deny health care to the sick, and slash our deficit in the process,” said the top Senate Democrat.
Republicans said Massachusetts voters, by giving a Republican the seat once held by the late Democratic lion Ted Kennedy, had sent the unmistakeable message that the overhaul should die.
“The people of Massachusetts had an opportunity to speak yesterday and they spoke rather loudly that they’d like to see the Congress go in a different direction,” said Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Asked whether the Democratic health legislation was dead, McConnell replied: “I sure hope so.”
The vote crippled Democratic plans to meld rival Senate and House versions of the historic overhaul, which aims to give health coverage to tens of millions of Americans who currently lack it, and pass a compromise bill.
Senate Democrats emerged from their weekly policy luncheons saying they needed to take stock of their shrinking legislative options now that Republicans have the votes to block Obama’s proposal.
“To me, the option that is a non-starter from the get-go is the option of doing nothing about the status quo,” said Democratic Senator Tom Carper.
“What we need to do right now is just take a deep breath, not rush to judgment, take a deep breath, consider the options that are before us,” he told reporters.
“Let’s take a breath and seriously consider a number of options. I think it does make some sense to take a few days to arrive at a decision. Now, we’re not taking about weeks. We’ve got days,” agreed Democratic Senator Bob Casey.
Democratic Senator Paul Kirk, Kennedy’s temporary replacement, said the Massachusetts election reflected voter anger at the lack of progress towards creating jobs, but denied it was a referendum on health care.
“I certainly didn’t take away from it, and I don’t think anybody in the caucus took away from it, that this is a reason to not go forward on health care,” he said.
Democrats were considering a range of options to achieve what their closed-door talks now could not: Get a health care overhaul bill to Obama’s desk before the November mid-term elections
One option may be for the House of Representatives to swallow its massive objections and endorse the Senate version of the bill — but it is far from clear Democrats have the votes for that option.
Democrats could try to modify that bill later using a parliamentary procedure that requires a simple majority.
“Heeding the particular concerns of the voters of Massachusetts last night, we heard the people and hopefully we will move forward with their considerations in mind,” said Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“But we will move forward,” she said.
