Partisan congressional wrangling has forced the White House to again revise its due date for health-care reform.
President Clinton's lobbyists, who admit there's no way their Memorial Day target will be met, now hope the House and Senate will pass bills by the mid-August recess.
White House debate is raging over whether Clinton should assert himself in the fray. For now, aides who think it would be folly for him to intervene have prevailed. They believe Congress is engaged in political positioning that may yet end in consensus support for reforms meeting most of Clinton's goals.
His plan would cover everyone, impose cost controls and require premiums shared by employers and workers.
Clinton is likely to meet Wednesday with congressional leaders, but he doesn't plan to twist arms or make any deals.
Committee action in the House is almost at a standstill, and Senate panels - despite a unanimous Labor Committee vote Thursday on an amendment designed to keep reform's costs under control - are dissolving into partisan bickering.
On NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, Sen. John Rockefeller accused Republicans of stalling and obstructionism. "The Democrats are reaching out, trying to strike compromises, and the Republicans are not responding," the West Virginia Democrat said. "We're only going to get a bill if the Republicans stop stalling and saying no to everyone."
He said Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan., is "one of the problems." Dole wants to be president and "has to protect his right flank" against rivals who oppose the president's approach to reform, Rockefeller said.
Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, author of a far less sweeping bill designed to make insurance more affordable, said Sunday that Clinton's plan will never pass. Clinton's vow to veto any bill without universal coverage, he says, is an "empty threat."
The House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday takes up a reform bill passed by its health subcommittee that would expand Medicare to cover the uninsured. But the panel probably won't vote until mid-June.
Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., predicted Sunday that a comprehensive health-care plan will pass this year.
Chafee, whose own health-care reform bill would require individuals, not their employers, to buy insurance, told NBC he doesn't believe universal coverage is possible without some kind of mandate.
Sen. Edward Kennedy's Labor and Human Resources Committee is debating a modified version of Clinton's plan that would free the smallest firms from having to pay premiums. Administration aides are convinced Chafee's individual mandate won't work, but they're quietly acknowledging to congressional allies that they'll accept some exemptions from the employer mandate for small businesses.
"We're not giving up on our basic principles" of "universal coverage, shared responsibility and controlling of costs, but other things we're willing to negotiate," Rockefeller says.
The White House is fretting about the partisan fight, but many Clinton aides says moderate Republicans and moderate and conservative Democrats ultimately will agree on reforms broad enough to allow the president to declare victory.
