Washington Report

All They Want for Christmas is a Healthcare Bill

After 23 consecutive days of debate and clearing key procedural votes, the Senate is set to take a final vote on its $871 billion healthcare bill at 8 a.m. on Thursday, before dashing back home for Christmas. President Barack Obama said he would not begin his Hawaii vacation until the vote has taken place.

“I will not leave until my friends in the Senate have completed their work,” Obama said. “My attitude is that if they’re making these sacrifices to provide health care to all Americans, then the least I can do is be around to provide them any encouragement and last-minute help where necessary. That’s the deal.”

Democrats passed a crucial milestone on Monday when they successfully garnered the 60 votes needed to curtail further debate on the bill, effectively ending Republicans’ efforts to filibuster. In addition, the AARP and the American Medical Association launched a joint advertisement in support of the bill.

According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nebraska), the bill would reduce the federal deficit by $132 billion in the first ten years and expand coverage to more than 31 million people who are currently uninsured.

Republicans, however, are furious, charging that it would do the opposite and that Democrats have been able to force the bill forward only by making backroom deals and making moves in the dead of night. RNC Chairman Michael Steele said the whole process was akin to Democrats “flipping a bird to the American people.”

Republican senators are feeling particularly sour about the sweet deal that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) made in exchange for his vote, which would exempt his state from paying for its share of federal Medicaid funds in perpetuity. But according to Reid, such deals represent “the art of compromise.”

“I don’t know if there’s a senator that doesn’t have something in this bill that was important to them,” he said. “And if they don’t have something in it important to them, then it doesn’t speak well of them.”

Obama Urges Small Banks to Lend to Small Businesses

President Barack Obama met with a dozen community bankers on Tuesday and essentially delivered the same message he gave “fat cat” bankers a week ago: Make more small business loans.

“There are businesses that are looking for loans out there, that are profitable and ready to make money, and the key is to match them up with banks that are in a position to lend,” Obama said. In

remarks to reporters after the meeting, the president said that most community banks weren’t engaged in the risky activities that led to the financial crisis, but “in some ways the pendulum may have swung too far in the direction of not lending after a decade in which it had gone way too far in the direction of getting money out of the door no matter the risk.”

Deborah C. Wright, president of Carver Federal Savings Bank (No. 1 on the BE 100s bank list), says that her bank’s Carver’s federal regulator now requires the bank to hold more capital to pledge against total loans made and it has been discouraging lending in some areas, such as commercial real estate. She also said that the bankers at the meeting all expressed concern about the “unintended consequences” of regulatory reform on their institutions.

“Small banks are deeply concerned that a ‘one size fits all system’ will inevitably hurt smaller players,” said Wright, adding that “The cost of complying with regulations, was brought up today by every banker.” Administration officials who attended the meeting, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and SBA administrator Karen Mills, have been charged with following up on these and other concerns raised by the bankers.

Speaking to reporters, Obama said, “I think, fairly, they just want to make sure that as we regulate better, that that doesn’t automatically mean that we’re just loading them up with more paperwork and more burdens. And I think we do have an obligation to make sure that the regulatory schemes that we come up with are more streamlined and more efficient and send clear signals to the banks involved.”