WASHINGTON - House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn hailed a new nonpartisan analysis showing the sweeping health-care bill would cut the deficit as he tried frantically Thursday to secure the 216 votes needed for House passage.
Clyburn said the report by the Congressional Budget Office, which predicted the health-care legislation would reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion over a decade, had helped build momentum for the vote tentatively set for Sunday afternoon.
"I'm very hopeful that we will stay here and cast this vote on Sunday so when we come back next week ... and do some important things we need to do in addition to health care," Clyburn said.
The CBO analysis said the health-care plan would cost $940 billion. That figure was $10-15 billion below the price tag Clyburn had predicted last week.
The CBO, the nonpartisan budgetary arm of Congress, scored the reconciliation or "corrections" measure on which the House will vote.
A separate report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee said the updated health care legislation would extend new medical coverage to 493,000 mainly low-income South Carolinians and provide tax credits to an additional 1.16 million families and 92,200 small businesses to help them buy insurance.
Rep. Gresham Barrett, a Westminster Republican who is running for governor, criticized the parliamentary procedures Democrats are using.
"While Democrats may publicly push a transparency initiative for Congress, they are still attempting to keep Americans in the dark ... through closed-door processes, sweetheart deals and legislative trickery," Barrett said.
If all 215 Republican House members vote against the bill as expected, Clyburn will need to obtain 216 Democrats to ensure passage.
Asked by reporters where his whip count stood, Clyburn would not answer.
Sen. Jim DeMint, a Greenville Republican who galvanized conservative opposition to the Democratic plan, said it would lead to a government takeover of health care.
"The president's bill will create a government-controlled insurance exchange where bureaucrats will have the power to set price controls and determine what insurance will or will not cover," DeMint wrote on his blog.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Seneca Republican, warned that if enacted with no Republican support, the fall elections will become a referendum on health care.
Graham also predicted that no other meaningful legislation will move in Congress for the rest of the year should the Democrats succeed.
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