Liberal Senators Put Best Face On Overhaul Disappointments

The Senate health overhaul bill gets smaller by the day, as the Democrats in charge seek a way to win the votes of all 60 members of the oh-so-diverse Democratic caucus.

You might think then that Senate liberals, who make up a majority of the Senate's Democrats, would be, well, angry. But their united front makes it pretty hard to tell.

The entire caucus met Monday night in a closed session to discuss the legislative options, which are few at this point, with Christmas rapidly approaching. And, surprisingly, liberals emerged singing pretty much the same holiday song: the bill is worth passing even without a public plan or a Medicare buy-in, the latest apparent casualty.

 

"There's enough good in this bill, that even without those two (things), we've got to move it," said Tom Harkin of Iowa, Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Indiana's Evan Bayh: "to use an old cliche, the general consensus was 'we shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good.' And in order to get all the insurance reforms accomplished, a number of other good things in the bill; dropping the Medicare expansion was necessary, and that's what should be done."

Even Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, a leading liberals and one who's been working on health issues since coming to the Senate more than two decades ago, seemed resigned to the bill's slimming size. "I represent the people of West Virginia," he said, one of the nation's poorest states, and most in need of health care help. "How could I not vote for the bill?"