Obama calls for reconciliation to prevent filibuster on health-care reform
March 3rd, 2010 | Published in News
By Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 4, 2010; A07
President Obama’s endorsement Wednesday of a risky legislative maneuver to complete health-care legislation sent Democratic leaders scrambling to settle policy disputes and assemble the votes necessary for passage in the coming weeks.
In a speech at the White House, Obama urged Congress to “finish its work” on health care and indicated support for a strategy that includes the budget maneuver known as reconciliation, which would protect the final product from a Republican filibuster in the Senate. Obama told an audience of medical professionals that Congress “owes the American people a final vote on health-care reform.”
But completing the job would require weeks of complicated parliamentary tactics that Republicans have pledged to challenge at every turn. Although Obama has reached out to GOP lawmakers in recent days, hosting a bipartisan health summit last week and offering to include conservative proposals in his plan, Republicans remain unified and resolute in their opposition.