When Richard Gephardt gathered his lieutenants in a private session on health reform last week, he didn't pull any punches. "As we all know, we're not there yet," he told his troops, who all, indeed, knew it. Then the House majority leader laid out his hopeful scenario: The Senate votes first on the politically crucial issue of employer mandates -- requiring employers to pay part of the bill for their workers' insurance. It passes the Senate, giving the House bill, which also contains mandates, "some momentum." The loyal flock listened, but everyone, says one participant, "was skeptical and exasperated." The reason: Most believe the Senate will vote down employer mandates, perhaps this week, leaving Democrats scrambling to find another way to save health reform -- and their own political hides.
It's ugly in Washington these days. Health reform hangs by a thread, the crime bill is stalled and Democrats worry about huge congressional losses in November. White House aides spent last week on national TV saying they did not lie about Whitewater; Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman left some congressional skeptics unconvinced, calling for his scalp. And Hillary Rodham Clinton's incomplete statements about what happened to Whitewater-related files after Vincent Foster's death called her credibility into question.
Legal surprise. To confuse matters, a judicial panel named a new Whitewater investigator, former federal Judge Kenneth Starr, to supplant Robert Fiske. The court explained that the law intends the independent counsel to be named by a judicial panel - - not by the attorney general, who chose Fiske. The White House is concerned. It's not just that Starr was George Bush's solicitor general. He has the authority, if he wants, to start the investigation from scratch. And he has questioned the contention of Clinton's lawyers that the president is too busy to respond to lawsuits such as Paula Jones's sexual-harassment case. Starr will have no jurisdiction in the Jones case, but Clintonites wonder if he will be fair.
The more immediate concern, however, is health care reform. The main substantive quandary -- how to pay -- remains unresolved, and the rhetoric and emotion have reached intense levels. Clinton wept last week at a health rally as a Texan named John Cox told how he lost his wife because they were uninsured and her cancer wasn't diagnosed in time; later, he invited Cox to Washington to serve as a kind of prop for his prime-time press conference. Both Clinton and Al Gore charged that the Republican plans would still leave such people in the lurch; the GOP cried foul. And each side began spending about $1 million on TV blitzes to build support for its version of reform.
Behind all the name-calling is a political conundrum: The House, with a large liberal contingent seeking the widest possible coverage, can't pass a bill without employer mandates; the Senate, full of cost-conscious moderates, can't pass a bill that includes them. The House measure, designed by Gephardt, imposes an 80 percent employer mandate at the outset to help pay for reform. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's measure, meantime, is a voluntary plan that aims for 95 percent coverage by 2002; falling short of that would cause a 50 percent mandate to kick in. Given the politics of the Senate, Mitchell called it the best he could do, and it probably was. To no one's surprise, House liberals called it a disaster -- and threatened to bolt when Clinton embraced the Mitchell plan.
The moderates in each chamber may still be the last, best hope for reform. Senate Republicans need seven moderate and conservative Democratic votes to defeat an employer mandate; the list of prospects is about twice that long. David Boren of Oklahoma, a Democrat against any mandate, argues that once employer levies are defeated "then we can get down to work on passing a bill." A group of about 10 "rumpsters" continues to design what John Chafee of Rhode Island calls an "amendment strategy" for changes in the Mitchell bill. Democrat John Breaux of Louisiana is working with Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut on yet another version of reform. "We need something bipartisan, and we're still circling," he says. "Around and around."
Arm-twisting. Breaux says the White House is at the "LBJ stage of legislating, trying to pick us off one at a time." Clinton aide Mack McLarty takes Breaux's pulse daily, and both Breaux and Lieberman saw the president last week. Lieberman asked the key question: "Why put the whole program in jeopardy [by supporting employer mandates] and eliminate the possibility of a bipartisan bill?" Among Clinton's arm-twisting "talking points": If health reform dies, Democrats all get hurt.
There is some anger among Democratic moderates that the administration is now trying to make up for lost opportunities for bipartisanship. Clinton himself acknowledged that 24 Republicans, in the first stages of the debate, had signed on to a bill calling for universal coverage. "He could have gone along with that bill, and [Senate Minority Leader Bob] Dole would have been on it," says Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, who opposes Mitchell's bill. "Lots of things could have been done instead of running around the country in a bus."
House moderates are equally frustrated. For instance, Mike Andrews of Texas says his leaders are "at least" 45 votes short; leadership aides say the count is "more like 20." Whatever the tally, the bipartisan group is readying an alternative -- letting employers off the mandate hook and without price controls -- that could be voted on the floor next week. Moderate House leader Jim Cooper of Tennessee calls the Gephardt bill "a waste of time," and lots of Democrats agree: Why should they go out on a limb to pass a large employer mandate if the Senate won't do it?
From the start, the White House game plan always revolved around getting different bills passed in each chamber -- and rewriting a grand compromise in a conference committee. Once a bill emerged from that conference, the thinking went, members would not be able to resist voting for it. As a result, says Cooper, "the White House has pretty much missed every chance for compromise."
Now the worry is that without health reform, Clinton will look as if he cannot lead. And he's not the only politician who may suffer. "This partisan spit sticks all over everything," says Kerrey. "[The voters] think we're a bunch of windbags who can't be trusted to do health care. I wonder where they got that idea?"
Health care endgame scenarios No one can quite figure out the likely outcome, but everyone is trying Democrats' dream. If Mitchell and Clinton are persuasive, 51 Democratic senators will pass a bill requiring firms to pay half of their workers' health insurance. That paves the way for House passage of a Democratic bill. Democrats' nightmare. Senate Democrats are unable to muster enough votes to pass the employer mandate. That blows up health care in the House. Members go home for summer break without a bill. Putting Humpty Dumpty together. Senate leaders fail to get mandates, but moderates' amendments salvage some kind of a reform bill. House Democrats adjust their plan accordingly. Another summit. Mandates have failed, and bipartisan groups still lack the votes to pass anything. Coaxed by his moderates, Senate GOP leader Bob Dole agrees to a summit that produces a true bipartisan plan.
Health care endgame scenarios
No one can quite figure out the likely outcome, but everyone is trying.
Democrats' dream. If Mitchell and Clinton are persuasive, 51 Democratic senators will pass a bill requiring firms to pay half of their workers' health insurance. That paves the way for House passage of a Democratic bill.
Democrats' nightmare. Senate Democrats are unable to muster enough votes to pass the employer mandate. That blows up health care in the House. Members go home for summer break without a bill.
Putting Humpty Dumpty together. Senate leaders fail to get mandates, but moderas
