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Reid: 3-4 GOP votes to make healthcare bill 'bipartisan'
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06/23/09 11:33 AM ET
It will take three or four Republican senators' votes for the Senate to achieve a "bipartisan" healthcare reform bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday.
Reid said that he would continue to work to pick up GOP votes for a reform package, sidestepping a question on whether or not he'd seek to use budgetary rules to avoid a filibuster and pass healthcare reform by a simple majority vote.
"We want to do a bipartisan bill. That's not saying we need half the caucus to come with us," Reid said after Senate Democrats' weekly luncheon. "We need about three or four Republican senators to join with us, to have a bipartisan bill."
Reid said that the caucus luncheon spent most of its time focused on the healthcare bill, which has been steadily making its way through preliminary stages in both the Senate Finance and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committees.
"And there was not a single senator said, 'Forget working with these clowns. Let's just go ahead and go to the reconciliation,'" Reid said. "Everyone there, liberals, moderates, conservatives in my caucus said, let's try to come up with a bipartisan bill."
"We're going to continue to go down that road," Reid said.
Reid said that he would continue to work to pick up GOP votes for a reform package, sidestepping a question on whether or not he'd seek to use budgetary rules to avoid a filibuster and pass healthcare reform by a simple majority vote.
"We want to do a bipartisan bill. That's not saying we need half the caucus to come with us," Reid said after Senate Democrats' weekly luncheon. "We need about three or four Republican senators to join with us, to have a bipartisan bill."
Reid said that the caucus luncheon spent most of its time focused on the healthcare bill, which has been steadily making its way through preliminary stages in both the Senate Finance and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committees.
"And there was not a single senator said, 'Forget working with these clowns. Let's just go ahead and go to the reconciliation,'" Reid said. "Everyone there, liberals, moderates, conservatives in my caucus said, let's try to come up with a bipartisan bill."
"We're going to continue to go down that road," Reid said.
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