Pelosi ally Murtha wouldn't support health bills

One of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) closest allies has said he wouldn’t vote for any version of the healthcare bill under consideration right now and predicted Congress wouldn’t pass legislation until early next year.

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), who is a co-sponsor of a healthcare bill that includes a single-payer provision, told constituents last night during a teleconference that Democrats still have a lot of work to do to produce a viable healthcare reform measure.

“The bill hasn’t passed yet,” Murtha said, according to an account of the conference reported in the Johnstown, Pa. Tribune-Democrat. “Everybody thinks this bill is concrete. I haven’t seen a bill I would vote for.”

He also said he would not support a bill that pays for abortions.

“Every bill I’ve seen has the high language that prohibits  [paying for] abortion,” he said. “Any health-care bill that passes will not have physicians reimbursed from pubic taxpayers’ money for abortion.”

Murtha has resisted calls from GOP opponents to host a live in-person townhall in his district over the August recess. Instead, he has visited several healthcare clinics and last night held a telephone townhall meeting for district residents in Cambria, Somerset, Indiana, Fayette and Westmoreland counties.

Questions about healthcare dominated the phone call, which lasted an hour and a half. Of the 40,000 homes called, 12,067 answered the telephone, including 9,416 who stayed on the phone at least two minutes and were tallied as town-hall participants, the Tribune-Democrat reported. The average participant’s call lasted 16 minutes.

Last week, Tim Burns, a GOP opponent, held his own live townhall, which attracted roughly 200 people who shared concerns about Democrats’ plans to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system, according to Burns’s spokesman. 

“How can John Murtha, in good conscience, tell his constituents he hasn’t seen a healthcare bill he would vote for, when he is the cosponsor of a true, single payer government run healthcare bill?” Burns questioned. "...Jack Murtha’s position on health care reform seems to be changing every day.  No wonder he refuses to attend public meetings to discuss his plan."

In addition, Murtha said he expects the final version of health-care reform to be passed in the first few months of 2010, and repeated several times that it will be a “uniquely American” plan.

“The ordinary person can’t afford [healthcare]. We have to do something about it, but it’s going to be uniquely American. It is not going to be a plan in like Canada or Germany or England have.”