Democrats clear impasse health care vote

• Last Updated: November 07. 2009 1:05PM UAE / November 7. 2009 9:05AM GMT

WASHINGTON // Capping months of struggle, Democrats in the House of Representatives cleared an abortion-related impasse blocking a vote on sweeping health care legislation late on Friday and officials expressed optimism they had lined up the support needed to pass President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

A vote was expected on the legislation today, after Mr Obama’s scheduled midmorning trip to the Capitol complex to make one final pitch for its approval.

The bill is designed to spread coverage to tens of millions who now lack it and ban insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

Under the late-night arrangement, abortion opponents were promised an opportunity to try to insert tougher restrictions into the legislation during debate on the House floor. The leadership’s hope is that no matter how that vote turns out, Democrats on both sides of the abortion divide will then unite to give the health care bill a majority.

The plan emerged from hours of meetings presided over by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and involving lawmakers on both sides of the abortion issue and officials from the US Conference on Catholic Bishops.

It effectively ended a standoff that dated to last summer, when the issue arose in one of three committees that debated the legislation. There was no immediate reaction from prominent abortion rights supporters called to the late-night negotiations in the Capitol.

“We’re very close” to having enough votes to prevail, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said in a midday assessment, although he cautioned at the time that a scheduled Saturday vote could slip by a day or two and sought to pin the blame on possible Republican delaying tactics.

In a struggle that combined the fate of Mr Obama’s signature policy initiative and a 2010 campaign issue, bipartisanship was not an option. Republican leaders boasted that all 177 House Republicans stood ready to oppose the US$1.2 trillion (Dh4.7tr) bill, which would create a new federally supervised insurance marketplace where the uninsured or those without employer-provided coverage could purchase it.

Consumers would have the option of picking a government-run plan, the most hotly contested item in the legislation and the basis for the Republican claim that Democrats were planning a government takeover of the insurance industry.

Democrats said their bill was designed to spread coverage to millions who lack it, ban insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and restrain the growth of health care spending nationally.

The Congressional Budget Office said that if enacted, the measure would extend coverage to 96 per cent of all eligible Americans within 10 years. Mr Obama and others in his administration spent part of the day lobbying intensely for its passage.

Several Democrats have already announced their opposition, most of them moderate to conservative members. Democrats hold 258 seats in the House and can afford 40 defections and still wind up with 218, a majority if all lawmakers vote.

* AP