A defeat in the Massachusetts Senate race has left President Barack Obama's health care reform effort on life support. A group of Democratic lawmakers, though, are trying to breathe new life in to the plan before it expires.
Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, told the Associated Press that lawmakers in the House and Senate are crafting a compromise bill that would blend the differing pieces of health care reform legislation that passed in the House and Senate.
The work on the compromise bill shows that Democrats seek to regain momentum lost for President Obama's pet initiative, when the party lost its crucial 60th Senate vote in the special election held in Massachusetts. Losing the 60th vote means Democrats lost the ability to block Republican filibuster or delaying tactics on the measure.
The work on the compromise bill could also be an outgrowth of President Obama's desire to get some form of health care reform legislation done soon.
In his State of the Union Address last week, Obama said that while job creation and deficit reduction were important, he was not going to abandon health care reform despite the setback in the Senate.
Rangel, a Congressional Black Caucus member who heads the House tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, said Democrats have to balance both health care reform and job creation as their top-two issues.
