Politico reports: "President Barack Obama and senior Democratic lawmakers closed in Friday on a final health care reform package, finishing a week of intensive negotiations on tax and coverage issues that had once threatened to derail the bill. … Obama and congressional leaders do not plan to negotiate through the weekend, signaling that they had wrapped up talks on major portions of the bill and were preparing to send it to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate.
"'We've worked through the gamut of issues in great depth, but there are no final agreements and no overall package,' the White House said in a statement. 'The next step in the process is to evaluate the costs and savings associated with the various proposals for each tenet of the legislation.'"
Meanwhile, Politico reports, "at least one industry group is threatening to pull its support for the bill. Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, sent an email to board members saying the group would pull its endorsement if lawmakers reduced the proposed 12-year monopoly on biologic drugs as part of the health care deal" (Budoff Brown and O'Connor, 1/16).
Rollcall reports that a source says although "tentative deals on most major issues appear to have been worked out, … 'key' outstanding issues … concern abortion and immigration provisions" (Pierce, 1/15).
The Washington Post reports: Democratic leaders hope "to settle lingering disputes before Tuesday, when a special election in Massachusetts could hand Republicans their 41st vote in the Senate and the power to defeat Obama's top domestic initiative. ... "
Democrats have begun plotting "a health-care strategy if they lose their supermajority in the Senate. Senate aides said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has shut down talk of the most obvious option: avoiding the need for another Senate vote by having the House approve the Senate-passed version of the health bill, rather than merging the two and having each chamber vote again. Pelosi has repeatedly said she could not rally the votes" to approve the package. They have also considered delaying the process to seat Republican Scott Brown if he wins the office formerly held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, the Post reports. But "senior Senate aides acknowledged it would be difficult to justify a postponement long enough to push the health bill to final passage."
Others have said they could use the "fast-track procedure, known as reconciliation, that would permit the bill to pass the Senate with 51 votes. … But reconciliation would require lawmakers to start over, dismantle the bill and scale it back dramatically." (Montgomery, 1/16)