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Democrats woo health care votes,
score their first convert in House

Ohio's Dennis Kucinich decides to back the bill, and Republicans say those who do will pay a price.

By LORI MONTGOMERY and PAUL KANE The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — President Obama claimed his first convert on health care reform Wednesday as senior Democrats, labor unions and an array of interest groups intensified their efforts to sway wavering lawmakers before a climactic vote in the House this weekend.

House leaders expressed increasing optimism about pushing Obama's top domestic initiative to final passage, even as they continued to tinker with the last element of the package, and as their day for a vote appeared to slip to Sunday.

Taking a break from his face-to-face efforts to win support for the measure, Obama made a rare appearance on Fox News Channel to declare that, after a year-long battle, Congress is finally poised to deliver the far-reaching overhaul to his desk.

"I'm confident it will pass. And the reason I'm confident that it's going to pass is because it's the right thing to do," the president said in a sometimes testy interview with reporter Bret Baier. Baier repeatedly prodded him about special deals in the package that were used to win over recalcitrant lawmakers, as well as a much-criticized parliamentary maneuver that the House may use.

The interview interrupted a presidential schedule packed with calls to Capitol Hill, where House leaders said Obama has focused on the 37 House Democrats who voted against health care legislation in November but may be open to supporting the latest package. Over the past few days, Obama has met privately with at least half a dozen dissenting Democrats in the Oval Office, while lobbying others by phone.

Those efforts paid off Wednesday when Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio said at a packed news conference that he will back the still-unfinished package, even though the measure would perpetuate the for-profit insurance system that Kucinich, a former presidential candidate and diehard advocate of government-provided coverage, views as the source of the nation's health care problems.

"I have doubts about this bill. This is not the bill I wanted to support," Kucinich said, but "careful discussions" with Obama this week on Air Force One helped persuade him. "I know I have to make a decision not on the bill as I would like to see it, but on the bill as it is," he said.

Meanwhile, in an unusual schism within the Catholic Church over abortion, a consortium of 59,000 nuns waded into the debate. They declared their support for the emerging legislation despite the insistence of the nation's bishops and anti-abortion groups that it would open the door to federal funding of abortion.

"Despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions," the group said in a letter signed by 60 female religious leaders. "It will uphold longstanding conscience protections and it will make historic new investments in support of pregnant women. This is the real pro-life stance, and we as Catholics are all for it."

The nuns' announcement is expected to resonate among a clutch of House Democrats who voted for a health care bill last fall but have raised objections to abortion provisions in the $875 billion Senate measure, which the House must approve as part of a final compromise. The group is being closely watched by House leaders trying to put together a 216-vote majority.

Two of them – Reps. Dale Kildee of Michigan and James Oberstar of Minnesota – said Wednesday that they will continue to support Obama's effort to enact the most ambitious changes to the nation's health care system in more than 40 years. A coalition of the largest labor unions also announced an ad campaign intended to get holdout Democrats behind the package.

After initially hoping for a Friday vote on both measures, senior Democrats said a Sunday vote looks increasingly likely. But House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he remains doubtful that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her lieutenants can persuade 216 Democrats to back a package that lacks support among voters and has united Republicans in opposition.

Boehner vowed to "do everything we can to keep the pressure on" Democrats in battleground districts. His first move will come today, when Republicans will try to force a vote on a resolution that calls on House Democrats to abandon plans to use a parliamentary maneuver known as "deeming" to pass the Senate bill without explicitly voting on it.

If approved, the Senate bill would go to the White House for Obama's signature, and the revised package would be sent to the Senate under special rules that protect it from a Republican filibuster. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the Senate could take up the changes next week, with a goal of approving the package before the Easter break.