SENATE DEMOCRATS have insisted that they are united behind a push to overhaul the American healthcare system.
Moreover, they say they are on course to pass a reform Bill by the end of this year, despite diminishing public support for the plan.
Speaking after a White House lunch hosted by President Barack Obama for the entire Democratic senate caucus, Senate majority leader Harry Reid played down reports of rifts between the party’s liberals and conservatives.
Mr Reid promised to work with Republicans “if there’s any way humanly possible” to agree a bipartisan Bill, but added that there was “absolute unity in the caucus” about the need to pass a Bill before the end of the year.
“In spite of the loud shrill voices trying to interrupt town hall meetings and just throw a monkey wrench in everything, we’re going to continue to be positive and work hard,” he said.
Conservative protesters have disrupted a series of meetings to promote healthcare reform in recent weeks as a Gallup poll showed that a broad mass of Americans believe that Mr Obama’s reform plan will diminish the standard of healthcare available.
Congressional Quarterly reported yesterday that, during the first half of 2009, health industry groups contributed almost $1.8 million to 18 key figures in the House of Representatives with responsibility for health reform.
Republicans have rejected all five healthcare Bills under discussion in the Senate and the House of Representatives but Democrats are divided too, with conservatives resisting a proposal to create a public health insurance scheme to compete with private insurers.
Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, suggested that, while Congress is in recess during August, half a million Americans will lose their health coverage.
“We’re determined to get this job done . . . We need to come back with a renewed sense of purpose,” he said. “Just because I’m a member of Congress doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t have a sense of security and confidence as well.”
With opinion polls showing his personal approval rating dropping towards 50 per cent, Mr Obama will today launch a month-long campaign aimed at boosting support for reform.
At a town-hall meeting in Elkhart, Indiana, today, the president is also expected to commend his stimulus spending in blunting the worst effects of the recession.
At the White House yesterday, vice-president Joe Biden said that the stimulus package had slowed down the decline in the US economy but he acknowledged that millions of Americans remained in economic distress. “My grandpop used to have the expression, he said, when the guy up the line is out of work, it’s an economic slowdown; when you’re brother-in-law is out of work, it’s a recession; when you’re out of work, it’s a depression,” he said.
“Well, it’s still a serious problem . . . But I can tell you today without reservation: The Recovery Act is working.”