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Obama to push health care bill in Ohio

President seeking votes of Democrats who are worried about health care’s longterm costs.

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By Jack Torry, Washington Bureau Updated 8:36 AM Monday, March 15, 2010

WASHINGTON — In January, Democrat Zack Space of Dover wrote House Democratic leaders to tell them he would not support the Senate version of a bill to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

The Senate bill, Space wrote, would “saddle my constituents with a new financial burden they cannot manage.’’ He complained that the Senate tax on expensive insurance plans would be “an unfair penalty on the working families of my district.’’

Yet sometime in the next week or so, Space will be asked to vote for the same Senate bill he so vigorously criticized. Exactly as it was written. Word for word, including such unpopular provisions as the millions of dollars in federal Medicaid money to Nebraska to win the support of Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson.

Space is just one of a number of House Democrats in Ohio and across the nation who are in the same quandary of voting for a Senate bill that they either dislike or is increasingly unpopular among Americans.

But their votes are the only way Democratic leaders can employ a legislative sleight-of-hand to remove the sections of the Senate bill that Space and other moderates dislike and salvage the signature goal of President Barack Obama’s administration — extending health insurance to millions of Americans currently without coverage.

Obama himself will step up his efforts Monday, March 15, to win the backing of Space and other moderate House Democrats. The president will deliver a speech on health care at a senior center in suburban Cleveland.

Obama is calling on the House to approve the Senate version of health care reform. Then after Obama signs the bill into the law, the House and Senate will modify the Senate bill in a way that moderate Democrats can support.

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