NEW YORK—President Barack Obama said that he is unconcerned about the exact procedures used in Congress to pass health care reform possibly as soon as this week.
In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday night, the President did not rule out a controversial “deem and pass” option that allows the House to only vote on fixes for the Senate bill and not have to approve the bill itself.
“What I can tell you is that the vote that’s taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform,” said the President.
“And if people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform. And I don’t think we should pretend otherwise.”
The provision that the President leaves open is also known as the “Slaughter rule,” named after Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of New York.
Slaughter, who heads of the House Rules Committee, recently suggested to Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Congress bypass a vote in the House on the Senate’s health care bill and instead move to allow a vote on fixes for that bill that would presume that the bill is accepted by the majority.
“I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or the Senate,” said the President.
Ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, the President made it clear that if his fellow Democrats don’t vote for health care reform they are “voting in favor of the status quo.”
He also acknowledged that issues over procedures being raised by Republicans are simply an unfortunate reality in Washington politics.
“So Washington gets very concerned about these procedural issues in Congress.”
“This is always an issue that’s—whether Republicans are in charge or Democrats in charge — when Republicans are in charge, Democrats constantly complain that the majority was not giving them an opportunity, et cetera,” added President Obama.
There was no shortage of contentious exchanges between Fox News host Bret Baier and Obama, even to the point that Baier apologized at the end. Still, Obama sounded a centrist tone.
“Now, we can fix [health care] in a way that is sensible, that is centrist.”
“I have rejected a whole bunch of provisions that the left wanted that are—you know, they were very adamant about because I thought it would be too disruptive to the system.”
“But what we can’t do is perpetuate a system in which millions of people day in and day out are having an enormously tough time and small businesses are sending me letters constantly saying that they are seeing their premiums increase 40, 50 percent.”
