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Health bill could pass without vote

Speaker Pelosi says she might use a procedure to provide political cover.

By LORI MONTG0MERY and PAUL KANE The Washington Post

WASHINGTON - After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might instead try to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi, D-Calif., could rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House could vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health care bill to be passed.

The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health care measure. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she said she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the bill.

"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. "But I like it because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

Republicans quickly condemned the strategy, framing it as an effort to avoid responsibility for passing the bill, and some suggested that Pelosi's plan would be unconstitutional.

"It's very painful and troubling to see the gymnastics through which they are going to avoid accountability," said Rep. David Dreier of California, the senior Republican on the House Rules Committee.

"And I hope very much that, at the end of the day, that if we are going to have a vote, we will have a clean up-or-down vote that will allow the American people to see who is supporting this Senate bill and who is not supporting this Senate bill."

House leaders have worked for days to round up support for the legislation, but the Senate measure has drawn fierce opposition from a broad spectrum of members.

Anti-abortion Democrats say it would permit federal funding for abortion, liberals oppose its tax on high-cost insurance plans, and Republicans say the measure overreaches and is too expensive.

Some senior lawmakers have acknowledged in recent days that Democrats lack the votes for passage. Pelosi, however, predicted Monday that she would deliver.

"When we have a bill, then we will let you know about the votes. But when we bring the bill to the floor, we will have the votes," she told reporters.

Pelosi said Monday that House Democrats have yet to decide how to approach the vote.

But she said that any strategy involving a separate vote on the Senate bill "isn't too popular," and aides said the leadership is likely to bow to the wishes of its rank-and-file.

As Pelosi and other congressional leaders pressed wavering lawmakers, President Obama highlighted how close the result may be as he focused his attention Monday on Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who has been a stalwart "no" vote on the Senate bill.

Kucinich, an uncompromising liberal, has rejected the measure because it does not include a government-run insurance plan.

Obama invited Kucinich to join him aboard Air Force One for a trip to Cleveland, where the president made a plea for health care reform, the third such pitch in eight days.

Asked whether Obama had been persuasive, Kucinich demurred. But Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Kucinich is coming under intense pressure from Ohioans who want Congress to act, and from his colleagues in Washington.

"All of us -- the governor, the congressional delegation, the president -- are making clear to Dennis that we won't have another chance for a decade if this doesn't happen," Brown said.