Clyburn: '218' matters, too, and House Dems lack number on bill

House Democrats have a "real problem with the Senate bill as is" and simply do not have the votes to pass it, the chamber's third-most powerful Democrat said Thursday.

A day after noting "the magic number on healthcare reform is 50" — a nod to the Senate passing a bill using reconciliation procedures — House Democratic Whip James Clyburn (S.C.) stressed the number "218" was just as important.

Without that number of votes, which House Democratic leaders currently do not have, the chamber is not able to continue with healthcare reform, he said.

"We can do some corrections and modifications with that bill and get that through the House ... but we can't in its current form," Clyburn said.

Clyburn's admission on Thursday follows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's announcement earlier in the day that her "members have been very clear" in the opposition to the Senate bill.

Essentially, that kills Senate Democratic leaders' plans of ping-ponging their bill as-is back to the House, passing it there and then pushing through a second biil that addresses House Democrats' concerns with the original legislation.

The benefit to that approach would be purely political, as Senate Democrats could make fiscal tweaks to the healthcare bill, including the current high-cost insurance tax, using reconciliation, which requires 51 votes, not 60, to succeed.

But House Democrats' announcement Thursday that they do not have the votes to proceed in that manner means their Senate counterparts must consider an alternative avenue for passage.

Ultimately, Clyburn described difficulties with the Senate as "frustrating." But he repeated on Thursday, much as he did a day earlier, that House lawmakers would still forge ahead with healthcare reform.

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