WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- There were not enough votes in either the House or Senate Thursday to approve the Medicare prescription drug bill hammered out by a congressional conference committee, Republicans said, but momentum appears to be moving toward passage.
A senior House leadership aide told United Press International the bill is expected to go to the floor for debate Friday, where passage generally is expected. More of a battle is expected in the Senate, where liberals such as Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., have vociferously denounced the measure.
"We do not have the votes in either house but every day, every hour, we're getting closer," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson told a National Press Club luncheon.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, told UPI: "As I chat with people I think there is a general drift for the bill. I think the real fight is in the Democratic Party -- the leadership is trying to keep the ranks from breaking."
Conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats oppose the bill and Thompson said: "Right now we have our work cut out for us on both sides."
Gingrich predicted if House lawmakers had a "free" vote unencumbered by political pressure, 215 Republicans and 125 Democrats would support it, enough for passage.
"You clearly have (House Minority Leader Nancy) Pelosi putting on all the pressure she can (on Democrats)," he said.
Gingrich said in the Senate he expected Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., likely would vote for the bill and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., definitely would vote "yes."
Both parties are working hard to stem defections and Republican leaders are trying to attract so-called Blue Dog Democrats to support the bill. One GOP staffer told UPI the breakdown so far leaves about an equal number of Democrats and Republicans crossing over the line to vote on the bill.
A problem both sides are having in shoring up support is the Congressional Budget Office had not released its final budgetary numbers as of Thursday afternoon. Some on Capitol Hill said they expect the CBO score to fall around $386 billion, below the $400-billion cutoff.
Democrats hope if the bill passes and seniors are unhappy with it -- or, it is as bad as many liberal senior groups and analysts have predicted -- the party eventually will reap political benefits.
Senate Democrat sources also were not optimistic about the prospects for killing the bill. Several staffers told UPI opponents were unlikely to gain the votes needed to derail it, handing President Bush a major policy win going into the 2004 election.
At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., stressed the bill was drafted after years of work on the issue by Sen. John Breaux, D-La, who co-chaired a bipartisan task force on Medicare during the Clinton administration.
Frist and Breaux both said though the bill will help all seniors under Medicare pay for prescription drugs, much of it is centered on helping the poorest of the poor acquire coverage. They both balked, however, at criticism the bill does not provide a high enough benefit, saying while not perfect it is more than adequate to ensure support.
"It is a substantial and major improvement over current Medicare," Breaux said.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., told reporters he had not made a decision on whether to try to filibuster the bill -- which requires 60 votes -- when it gets to the Senate floor. "It's too early to determine what our strategy will be," he said. "I'll want to consult with our colleagues, once they have had an opporutnity to see it."
The bill calls for an average $35 monthly premium, a $250 deductible and a 75-percent government subsidy of drug costs up to $2,250. There is no coverage from $2,250 to $3,600, after which catastrophic coverage begins and seniors pay only 5 percent of drug costs beyond $3,600.
Thompson said seniors with incomes of 135 percent to 150 percent above the poverty line would receive government payments of between 88 percent and 90 percent of all their drug costs, while those below 135 percent of poverty would receive a 97-percent subsidy. Seniors under 150 percent of poverty also would not be subjected to the coverage gap.
Liberal Democrats mainly are unhappy with a demonstration project proposal that would pit traditional Medicare expenditures against what private plans are paid in 2010. If traditional Medicare expenditures are higher than the private plans, beneficiaries not in the private plans would pay higher premiums. On the flip side, if traditional Medicare cost less than private plans, those seniors would receive rebates.
The legislation for the first time would place limits on what traditional Medicare pays for senior health care, a change opponents said would destroy the traditional entitlement program and force seniors into managed care.
Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, Kennedy categorized the bill as an effort to "carry out a right-wing agenda" for Medicare privatization, a move he said threatens the future of the entitlement and would require seniors to pay different premiums for prescription drug coverage depending upon where they live.
Republicans were buoyed by an endorsement of the bill from the seniors group, AARP, which was heavily courted by the GOP. AARP came under heavy criticism from Democrats and some of its own members, who protested the decision at the group's headquarters in Washington.
Thompson called criticism "completely out of line ... representing the lowest of the low in American politics."
Republicans said, however, at the end of the debate few lawmakers would leave $400 billion on the table and walk away with no drug benefit for the nation's 42-million Medicare beneficiaries.
Christian Bourge is UPI's Congressional and Policy Correspondent. Ellen Beck covers healthcare policy for UPI Science News. E-mail [email protected]
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(Editors: UPI photos WAP2003111901, WAP2003111902, WAP2003111903, WAP2003111904 and WAP2003111905 are available)
