Speaker Pelosi pledged to go forward with health care reform, but her newser this morning suggested that there was not a clear plan on how to do this.  She was fittingly interrupted by the tolling of a clock in the room, making it audibly clear that she was short on time when it came to health care.   Even if she kept repeating that they are not in a rush. 

The Speaker almost completely ruled out the idea of the House passing the Senate-version of the health care bill. “I don’t see the votes for it at this time.”

The press tried to get as much clarification as possible. “Unease would be a gentle word” to describe the attitudes of the speakers colleagues about multiple previsions of the Senate bill. “There are certain things that members just can not support.  For example the Nebraska piece of it.”  She also pointed out that there’s “always been unrest in our caucus about the excise tax on so-called ‘Cadillac benefits,’ just to name a few.”

“So in it’s present form without any change I don’t think it’s possible to pass the Senate bill in the House,” continued Pelosi.

However the Speaker was adamant that “We have to get a bill passed.  That’s a predicate that we all subscribe too.”  Passing the Senate bill and fixing it later presents fundamental problems for some of the democratic caucus members.  She related this to the Massachusetts special election by saying that some of the “concerns that were expressed in Mass, were about some of the provisions of the Senate bill.”

The Speaker seemed to put the idea of “just taking pieces of the bill” and figuring out how to pass those on the table.

There was an effort to move the conversation to the President’s agenda of job growth.  “The jobs issue has permeated everything, major initiative that we have.  Of course our last action here in the house was to pass a jobs bill before we had adjourned…It’s always been about jobs and deficit reduction.”  She continued that they may not have been clear enough about the connection between the creation of jobs and deficit reduction. 

While she said that they are not in a rush, the State of the Union looms large. 
“we’ll take the time it needs to consider the option again

When asked about her reaction to Sen-Elect Brown winning in Massachusetts she said, “The idea that at any given time the Senate would have 60 votes is not what we would call the most iron clad assumption… We always prepared for what if they don’t.”  She continued, “We’ve always though what if?… We were not without our preparation.” 

That may have been a hint at using reconciliation to pass some type of health care measure, but she wasn’t clear what the path was.