Dems Struggle Over Health Care

Democrats struggled to break health-care reform out of limbo Thursday as House and Senate leaders attempted to come together with a strategy to push the Democrats’ signature issue through the legislative process after Republican Scott Brown’s surprise win in Massachusetts Tuesday. With neither legislative body keen to capitulate to the other—either by House Democrats voting through the Senate’s bill or by Senate Dems restarting on the legislation—Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid scrambled to keep progressive and moderate Democrats happy, absent a sign from the White House as to how to proceed. “We have to have it,” said West Virginia Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller. Losing health-care reform, he said, “would just be awful.”