A month ago, U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of Columbia seemed confident a huge health care reform bill pushed by his Democratic Party would be adopted, providing added benefits for hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians.
In the space of a week, however, the Democrats have lost a key Senate seat needed to fight any GOP filibuster on health care and Republicans have asked Democrats to start over.
But Clyburn said Democrats will continue their push for health care reform using a fast-track procedure for budget issues that only requires 50 votes in the Senate instead of 60 normally used to prevent a filibuster. Democrats, he said, would put any budget-related part of health care reform in one bill and use the process to pass it.
"I think there are 50 votes in the Senate for a plan as approved by the House," he said.
However, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Seneca Republican, said using the procedure would be "a tremendous abuse of the budget reconciliation process" and would backfire on Democrats.
"It will blow up in their faces," he warned. "It will add to Democratic woes beyond belief, and it would set a precedent that would be dangerous."
Clyburn said he has recommended other issues related to health care reform - especially dealing with insurance, such as banning denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions - be addressed in separate legislation.
"I want to see how many Republicans would want to say to the American people that if you have a child born with juvenile diabetes, we're going to vote for that child never to have health insurance on its own nor be a part of your policy," he said.
"I would like to see what congressman is going to stand up and vote to say to a woman with breast cancer, 'We're going to support insurance companies removing you from coverage.'"
And every state should be treated the same under whatever legislation passes, Clyburn said.
Senate Democrats were heavily criticized for including in the plan a provision to exempt Nebraska from paying the state portion of Medicaid for new benefits, a move widely viewed as an effort to secure the 60th vote in the Senate belonging to Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson.
"Health care reform didn't take a beating," Clyburn said. "The Senate version of health care reform took a beating. It was the Nebraska amendment that was used in Massachusetts to turn people against the Obama plan."
Despite a series of Democratic setbacks in recent weeks, including the announcement of several Democrats retiring from Congress, the loss of former Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy's Senate seat to Republicans and a U.S. Supreme Court decision on campaign spending seen as effectively a victory for the GOP, Clyburn said he is undaunted, though concerned.
"Yes, I'm concerned because I think we ought to be responding to the American people and not being engaged in filibusters, as we are engaged in the Senate," he said.
"If we can get the Senate to respond to the American people the way the House has responded to the American people, I think we'll be in a much better place."
Calling the Senate an American "House of Lords," Clyburn said House-passed legislation wanted by the public, including a jobs bill and an energy bill that would benefit South Carolina, is being blocked in the Senate.
"The problem the president has is not with the American people because of what Congress is doing," he said. "He has a problem with the American people because of what the Senate is not doing."
Graham said the problem most Americans found with the health care bill was "backroom politics" involved in the Senate-passed version and the "explosion of spending" that would result from the House-passed version.
"I stand ready to work with the president and the administration to find some common ground," he said. "That's what we should be doing."
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