Pelosi: House lacks votes to OK Senate health bill

WASHINGTON -- Democrats' last-ditch approach to saving President Barack Obama's health care overhaul -- prodding House members to pass a Senate version vastly unpopular with them -- isn't working.

So lawmakers are talking about more modest health legislation that could have bipartisan appeal, though even that may prove more complicated than many suggest.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she lacks the votes to move the Senate's bill through the House and to Obama's desk. Under a plan backed by the White House, the new law would be followed by a separate measure making changes sought by House members, such as easing the Senate's tax on higher-cost health plans.

Pelosi, D-Calif., spoke to reporters after House Democrats held a closed-door meeting at which participants vented frustration with the Senate legislation.

Many rank-and-file Democrats said the defeat in this week's Massachusetts special election -- in which Republicans captured the Senate seat held for decades by the late Edward M. Kennedy -- meant it was time to seek more modest health legislation.

It would be "problematic" to persuade House members to approve the Senate bill and then amend it, Pelosi said, though Democrats haven't completely ruled out trying to do so. Many of them say the Senate bill does too little to help people afford health coverage.

"In its present form without any changes I don't think it's possible to pass the Senate bill in the House," Pelosi said, adding, "I don't see the votes for it at this time."

Any effort to reshape the health legislation could be a lengthy process -- despite Democrats' desire for a quick election-year pivot to address jobs and the economy, which polls show are the public's top concern. They would have to decide which initiatives to pursue and how to pay for them -- at a time when lawmakers have already been working on the issue for a year.

"We're not in a big rush" on health care, Pelosi said. "Pause, reflect."

Several Democrats said they should refocus the legislation onto popular proposals like barring insurance companies from denying coverage to sick people.

"The mega bills are dead," said Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-N.Y. "If we didn't see what happened Tuesday night, we have blinders on."

Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., said that ideally, Democrats would like to address a whole range of problems, including giving more people coverage, helping them pay for it and curbing the growth of medical costs.

"We're obviously finding out we don't have an ideal world, so why not deal with that which we can get done," Serrano said.

By all accounts, Democrats have made no final decision on their options, which included breaking the health legislation into several smaller bills. While the White House has been hoping for quick action, it has also signaled it is open to a scaled-back bill -- a process that could be lengthy.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama supports "letting the dust settle" to give lawmakers time to search for the best way forward, and does not believe health care legislation is dead.

But with Republican Scott Brown's Massachusetts victory denying Democrats the 60 Senate votes they need to kill Republican delaying tactics, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine -- once wooed by Democrats as a potential 60th vote -- said Thursday she was eager to see the final product.

Snowe said Massachusetts voters forced Democrats to "take a legislative pause or a time-out, build bipartisan support for the pieces that can work," something she's been urging for weeks.

On Wednesday, Obama said Democrats should work on legislation that would attract broad support.

"I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on," Obama said in an interview with ABC News.

"We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don't then our budgets are going to blow up. And we know that small businesses are going to need help," he said.

In a bid for GOP support, participants suggested other elements that could be added. These included allowing insurance companies to sell policies across state lines, according to Rep. Timothy Walz, D-Minn.

Sen. John McCain rejected the idea of a slimmed-down version of the current legislation. "We are more than happy to sit down and start over," the Arizona Republican said Thursday on CBS' "Early Show." "Not scale back, but start over in a true negotiating process, rather than the Democrats going back to try to pick off one or two Republicans."