Bipartisan health-care deal unlikely, Democrats say

WASHINGTON — Given hardening Republican opposition to health-care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance for the minority's cooperation in approving any bill, and increasingly are focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.

Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans' purposely strident tone, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current health-care proposals were flawed beyond repair.

"Only a handful seem interested in the type of comprehensive reform that so many people believe is necessary to ensure the principles and the goals that the president has laid out," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

The shift may not make producing a final bill much easier. The party still must reconcile views of moderate and conservative members worried about the cost and scope of legislation with those of more progressive lawmakers determined to win a government-run insurance option to compete with private insurers.

On the other hand, such a change could alter the dynamic of talks surrounding the legislation, and even change the substance of a final bill. With no need to negotiate with Republicans, Democrats might be able to move more quickly. Democratic senators might feel more empowered, for example, to define the authority of the nonprofit insurance cooperatives that are emerging as an alternative to a public option.

An August of dissent

Republicans have used the August recess to dig in hard against the overhaul outline drawn by Democrats. The Senate's No. 2 Republican, Jon Kyl of Arizona, is the latest, saying Tuesday that the public response should persuade Democrats to start over.

"I think it is safe to say there are a huge number of big issues that people have," Kyl said. "There is no way that Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar-plus bill."

The White House also has interpreted critical comments by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican negotiator in a Finance Committee effort to reach a bipartisan compromise, as a sign there is little hope of a deal acceptable to both parties.

Grassley, facing a potential Republican primary challenge next year, has received an earful in his home state. The White House, carefully following his activities, presumed he no longer was interested in negotiating with Democrats after he made no effort to debunk misinformation that the legislation could lead to "death panels" empowered to judge who would receive care.

Grassley also has put off plans for Finance Committee negotiators to meet before Congress resumes.

Further, Grassley this week said he would vote against a bill unless it had wide support from Republicans, even if it had all the provisions he wanted. "I am negotiating for Republicans," he told MSNBC.

In an interview Tuesday, Grassley said he simply had been repeating earlier comments. He said raucous town-hall meetings might have made the job of reaching a compromise harder but that he had not given up.

"It may be more difficult than it was before," he said. "I am intent on talking. I am intent on seeing what we can do."

Politics at play?

One senior administration official said the sense within the White House was that Republicans, in an effort to undermine President Obama and congressional Democrats, had made a political calculation to oppose any legislation.

This week's careful administration maneuvering on whether a public option was an essential element of any final bill was seemingly part of the new White House effort to find consensus among Democrats, since a public plan has met resistance from moderate and conservative Democrats who could be crucial to passage if no Republicans are on board.

Even as the administration showed some flexibility, angering liberal Democrats who consider a public plan essential, Republicans turned their attacks from the public option to the cooperative idea being promoted by some Senate Democrats.

In what Democrats regarded as further evidence that Republicans were not serious about negotiating, Kyl and Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican, described a co-op as a public option carrying another name.