Brown is doing the rope-a-dope.
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Scott Brown fumes over health plan
Boston Herald ^ | 2/23/10 | Jay Fitzgerald
Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 11:02:41 AM by raccoonradio
Sen. Scott Brown yesterday warned the Obama administration against using the “nuclear option” of ramming through Congress a revised $1 trillion health-care bill outlined yesterday by the White House.
The administration unveiled what’s already being called “Obamacare II” - a mix of already approved House and Senate health-care legislation aimed at expanding coverage for 31 million Americans.
Obama’s plan also includes caps on excessive insurance-premium increases, similar to measures Gov. Deval Patrick proposed two weeks ago in Massachusetts.
A spokesman for Brown, whose dramatic Senate victory last month halted Capitol Hill momentum for health-care reform, said Democrats better not try to use a reconciliation strategy to pass the bill with a simple Senate majority.
Brown vowed during his campaign that he would be the crucial “41st vote” to kill reform legislation under the Senate’s supermajority-vote rules.
“If the Democrats try to ram their health-care bill through Congress using reconciliation, they are sending a dangerous signal to the American people that they will stop at nothing to raise our taxes, increase premiums and slash Medicare,” said Brown spokesman Colin Reed in a statement. “Using the nuclear option damages the concept of representative leadership and represents more of the politics-as-usual that voters have repeatedly rejected.”
While Brown’s office didn’t specifically reject Obama’s latest bill, there was no doubt Brown views the proposal as similar to earlier health-care plans backed by Democrats, even though he reached across the aisle to support a major jobs bill yesterday.
The administration faces an uphill bid to win the bill’s passage in Congress, where many Democrats were scared away from backing reform after Brown’s victory.
A spokesman for the White House said the plan is an “opening bid” for a planned bipartisan summit on Thursday.
In a statement, Patrick, whose office dodged questions about whether Obama lifted the premium-cap idea from his Democratic ally in Massachusetts, praised the president’s legislation and vowed to work for health-care reform.
“President Obama clearly recognizes health-care expansion must include cost-control initiatives to help working families and businesses that are drowning in higher premiums,” said Patrick, who was in Washington yesterday.
