NYT - Key Moment in Health Reform Battle
March 22, 2010, 12:22 am
A Turning Point in the Health Care Fight
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Lots of Democrats can point to lots of different moments when they think the health care bill was brought back from the brink of collapse. But for a number of senior House Democrats, the crucial turning point was a meeting the night of March 9 in the offices of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was supposed to be a strategy session with Senate Democratic leaders about the budget reconciliation procedure that Democrats were planning to use to make final changes to the health care bill and push them through the Senate on a simple majority vote.
Instead, the session focused entirely on the question of whether to include another of President Obama’s top legislative priorities — a sweeping overhaul of federal student loan programs — in the reconciliation package. The budget resolution approved by Congress last spring provided for completing both major health care legislation and major education legislation through reconciliation, which adjusts federal policy to meet specific goals for reducing the deficit.
A trio of House leaders — Representatives James E. Clyburn, the Democratic whip; George Miller, the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee; and Xavier Becerra of California, the vice chairman of the Democratic caucus — argued strenuously in favor of including the education proposal.
