Democrat Hopes Fade For Health reform This Year

Blaming Republican leaders and their negative comments, Senate Majority leader George Mitchell is close to conceding that health care reform legislation is dead for this year.

While still meeting with the leaders of a bipartisan Senate group working on a bill to provide coverage to over half of those now without insurance, he said a bill should not be discussed if it faces certain defeat. Some 60 Senate votes are needed to break a filibuster, and votes will start being counted, he said, adding that liberal labor and health groups which once supported reform now oppose the only proposal being actively discussed.

At a meeting attended by Congress leaders and President Clinton, House minority whip Newt Gingrich said that if health reform were brought up now, it would spark partisan fighting and thus kill the General Agreement on tariffs and Trade bill. Senate minority leader Bob Dole and Representative John Dingell, who has been trying to change the health care system since 1955, agreed that the President risks losing the rest of his agenda. Senator John Breaux of the mainstream group working on reform joked that it was time to call in former President Jimmy carter.