Pat Dollard

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Politico:

Democrats wake up after Thursday’s health care summit staring down another deadline to get their bill done, exactly four weeks to Easter break.

They’ve blown through most every deadline before, so there’s no guarantee they won’t this time either. President Barack Obama didn’t help by leaving the door open to compromise with Republicans – even if it takes weeks.

So that means a party looking to emerge from the summit with a clear sense of the path forward instead find itself in the same old place – fighting the clock to finish health care, with an uncertain timeline, a complex legislative path and no idea if its leaders can muster the votes.

“We hope based upon this discussion that we can move forward, but move forward we will,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

But the truth is, the Democrats are no more certain of getting health care done after the summit than they were before. The seven-hour session did little to change the underlying dynamics of the debate.

Heading into the summit, Democrats were preparing to start the steps to get the bill through the Senate with reconciliation – needing only 51 votes to pass a bill — as early as next week. They didn’t expect Republican cooperation Thursday and they didn’t get any. Republicans walked out of the session saying the same thing they said going in – unless you start over, we can’t get on board.

Enter Obama, who talked in an emotional closing statement of giving Republicans a few weeks, a month, even six weeks to work with Democrats on a compromise. Democrats insisted he wasn’t being literal – but even if not, his comments threaten to push off a schedule that’s already going to be difficult to meet.

Within minutes of Obama’s remarks, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) made clear that he didn’t envision extended negotiations with the Republicans. “That’s the president’s timeline, not mine,” Reid told POLITICO.

But already there were signs Thursday night that the schedule was slipping. One Democratic lawmaker involved in the negotiations, who asked not to be identified to speak candidly of the process, said the party would not, in fact, start down the path of reconciliation next week.

Rep. Rob Andrews of New Jersey, one of the Democrats’ most prominent voices on health care, said House leaders expect Obama to modify his plan based on Thursday’s meeting and send a revised proposal to the House by next week. Democratic leaders will then use the president’s bill as their jumping-off point.

Another Democratic problem is that their hoped-for slam-dunk on bipartisanship didn’t materialize Thursday. Democrats from Obama on down seemed to be counting on portraying the Republicans as obstructionists and know-nothings – all the better to convince the American public that Democrats really had no choice but to jam through the bill on reconciliation.

But instead, the Republicans who showed up generally looked reasonable and sincere. Gallup polls going in showed the public didn’t favor Obama’s bill and also opposed the reconciliation process – and it’s hard to picture how the summit changed those results.

That’s not to say the summit didn’t bring a certain clarity: Democrats aren’t starting over, Republicans aren’t planning to sign on to Obama’s plan, and the only clear hope Democrats have of passing a bill is using reconciliation.

For all of the talk of reconciliation as the solution, the process is far more complicated than anything the Democrats have attempted so far to pass health care reform. And there are still divisions within the party about how lawmakers will make it work procedurally.

Democrats will likely need to embark on three-step process, with a target to finish it before the Easter recess.

Step one, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said Congress must first pass a reconciliation bill with major, but limited, fixes to the original Senate bill.

Step two, the House would then agree to pass the Senate bill.

Step three, both chambers would have to pass a third bill with policy changes that would not pass muster under reconciliation, which requires every element to have a direct impact on the federal budget. For example, the third bill would be needed to make any changes to abortion and immigration provisions in the Senate bill.

Sound tricky? It is. House Democrats may well withhold their votes on the first two bills until they are assured their concerns will be addressed in a third bill, which could face a tough challenge in the Senate clearing a 60-vote threshold, since Democrats only have 59.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has cast doubt on Pelosi’s hopes of passing the reconciliation bill with fixes ahead of the Senate bill.

He says the order must be reversed. The House must pass the Senate bill first – before either chamber considers the reconciliation package, he said.

“I don’t know of any way, I don’t know of any way where you can have a reconciliation bill pass before the bill that it is meant to reconcile passes,” said Conrad, who would be a central figure on the Senate floor if Democrats embark on the complicated process.

The Pelosi-Conrad disagreement is just one of the major procedural and political questions Democrats will need to resolve quickly coming out of the summit.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.), who has suggested the lack of trust between the chambers has hindered efforts to move forward, said the summit may have helped erased some of their mutual skepticism.

“There was a feeling that there was more of a bonding between the House and Senate Democrats and that the Republicans acted so irresponsibly, it was stunning actually … And therefore the chances of them passing the Senate bill maybe got better today,” Rockefeller said.

Obama may also get a break on timing. Republicans wouldn’t take the bait on his offer to chew on the plan for weeks, saying there is no way to compromise if the talks begin with the existing bill.

“If he’s not going to start over, no,” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor said. “This bill’s a nonstarter.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was “discouraged” by the outcome of the meeting.

“He conceded and a number of the majority conceded there are plenty of good Republican ideas,” McConnell said. “The core problem is this: We don’t think a 2,700-page bill that cuts a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, raises taxes by half a trillion dollars and drives insurance premiums up is a good idea.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod said the president “will have additional discussions, and he’ll decide how to move forward. I think everybody has a sense of urgency about moving forward. I can’t tell you what the precise timing will be, but I expect that we’re going to move forward.”

But in the end, Obama left no doubt that for all the attempts at bipartisanship Thursday, he’s more than prepared to do what it takes to get a bill. In his closing statement, Obama all but said reconciliation was the inevitable outcome unless Republicans could find a way to inch closer to the Democrats.

“Then I suspect Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner will have a lot of arguments about procedures in Congress about moving forward,” Obama said.