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United States News Title: Harry Reid scrambles as deadline looms--Nelson: There is no deal Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid led a marathon negotiating session Friday with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) in a hectic bid to persuade the last holdout to sign onto the health care reform bill ahead of a key deadline Saturday morning. Nelson was huddling into the evening with Reid, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and a circle of top White House officials that included deputy chief of staff Jim Messina and senior adviser Pete Rouse. Nelson was seeking stronger language to prohibit federal financing of abortions and additional relief for his state from future Medicaid funding obligations. At 8 p.m., Nelson left a meeting in Reid’s office, telling reporters, “There’s no deal.” Three hours earlier Nelson had hinted at progress “if for no other reason than you understand each other’s position a little better.” Despite the ticking clock for the Democratic leadership, Nelson said he wasn’t operating on a deadline. “Harry has some time frames he is thinking about,” Nelson said. “But I don’t have a deadline. To me, you have to get it right.” No announcement was expected Friday night, Schumer said, because the Congressional Budget Office would first need to return a cost estimate on any potential deal. “All the pieces are beginning to fall into place,” Schumer said. “But we’ve still got a ways to go.” As a result, the outcome of President Barack Obama’s chief domestic priority was a cliffhanger. Democrats left the Capitol without knowing whether Reid would reach a deal overnight and present it to them when they returned at 7:30 a.m. Saturday for a vote on the Defense Department appropriations bill. Reid needs to get a deal in place by the morning so he can begin the procedural steps necessary to pass the health care bill by Christmas Eve. Immediately following the vote on the DOD bill, Reid is expected to introduce the health care compromise language as part of a “managers’ amendment.” Senate Republicans are then expected to ask for a full reading of the amendment, which could take several hours, depending on its length. Reid needs the reading to end by 11:59 p.m. Saturday. This is because Reid needs at least one day, which would be Sunday, between when he moves to end the debate on the amendment and when the Senate votes early Monday morning. Nelson may not signal his support for the deal publicly. But Senate Democratic aides say if Reid introduces the amendment Saturday, he has been reasonably assured that he has 60 votes to break a series of Republican filibusters next week. There is a chance Reid could still move ahead without private assurances, but that is widely considered a very high-risk strategy. By the evening, the negotiations had moved to an anteroom in Reid’s suite of offices on the second floor of the Capitol. Rows of bottled water were stacked on the coffee table, which was surrounded by antique sofas, where the senators and aides worked through Nelson’s lists of concerns. “He’s not for major apple cart changes,” Schumer said. “He’s just for specific things that have to be talked through.” For the second night in a row, Nelson said he was preparing for a late night. “As long as it takes and/or as long as it is productive,” he said. Nelson gave a hint of the level of his unease with the bill in a letter Thursday to Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican who urged the senator to oppose the bill because of the burdens the Medicaid expansion would place on the state. “In your letter, you note that the current Senate bill is not in Nebraska’s best interest. I agree,” Nelson wrote. “That is why I continue to work to change it. Please be advised that I have proposed that the Senate bill be modified to include an ‘opt-in’ mechanism to allow states to avoid the issues you have raised. Under my proposal, if Nebraska prefers not to opt in to a reformed health care system, it would have that right.” A statewide opt-in mechanism is not on the table, according to an official familiar with the negotiations, but the Democratic leadership is trying to find a way to ease the burden on the state. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who authored a proposal to tighten the abortion restrictions, said Friday that a compromise was still being negotiated. “We just don’t know yet,” Casey said, but added that they have to reach a resolution very soon. “The time is running out. I don’t know the exact hour, but it’s right around the corner.” The lack of details — less than 72 hours before senators are scheduled to cast the first key vote on Monday at 1 a.m. — came under attack Friday from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "The majority leader has signaled that he is going to unveil the most significant piece of domestic legislation in memory, and his goal after introducing that measure in the morning presumably would be, of course, to vote on it some 36 hours after that,” McConnell said. “What we know for sure at the moment, is that we've seen the Pelosi bill and we've seen the Reid bill, but none of us ... have seen the newest bill, which is a mystery to virtually everyone, including the Democratic leaders of the Senate." At a morning press conference, the Republicans used visual aids to press their point. The health care bill from the House and Reid’s original legislation in the Senate were piled on a table — next to a skeleton of packing tape meant to represent the manager’s amendment that has yet to emerge. McCain said Republicans would travel to the Capitol in RVs through a snowstorm Saturday morning to try to defeat the pending health care bill. "Tomorrow, there's going to be a snowstorm, and we'll be coming in our RVs and everything will be paralyzed, as our nation's capital always is when there's a snowstorm," McCain said. "The fact is that there's a firestorm out there in America — and that firestorm says stop this. We want to know what is in this legislation." Democrats said they were equally determined to keep the health care reform bill moving forward, despite the threat of a once-in-a-decade storm. “The vote will not be delayed,” Casey said. “There's no way that we're going to let that be delayed. We may have to send out Jeeps to pick people up, but we'll get them there.”
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Hang tough, Nelson! The extortion has been exposed! We'll fight for you and the Offutt base! Health Care Rumor Gains Traction With Right On Tuesday, the Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb, citing an unnamed Senate aide, wrote that "the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn't fall into line." Translation: Goldfarb is reporting that, according to his source, the Obama administration is suggesting to Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska (left), who has been hesitant to support the Senate health care bill due to his concerns over abortion, that it will close the base if Nelson doesn't back the bill.
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