Poll: Regroup on health care, most say

A majority of Americans say President Obama and congressional Democrats should suspend work on the health care bill that has been on the verge of passage and consider alternatives that would draw more Republican support, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

The results underscore the unsettled prospects for health care legislation — which has consumed much of the capital's energies for nearly a year — in the wake of Republican Scott Brown's upset victory in the Massachusetts Senate race Tuesday. He will give the GOP the 41st vote they need to sustain a filibuster and block action.

SOURCE: USA Today

Obama Acknowledges Health Overhaul Hit Buzz Saw

Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut is suggesting that Democrats take a month or more off from working on health care legislation to regroup in the wake of Tuesday's election loss in Massachusetts.

His comments are the latest sign that Republican Scott Brown's Senate victory has thrown President Barack Obama and Democrats completely off-track in their quest to remake the nation's health care system.

[...] Obama also said the legislation has ''run into a bit of a buzz saw'' of special interest opposition and partisan politics. ''And the longer it's taken, the uglier the process has looked,'' he said.

Notwithstanding the comments Friday from Dodd, who is not seeking re-election this year, Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have both insisted the health care legislation will go forward -- though they haven't said how. Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Friday that plans to push forward haven't changed...

SOURCE: Associated Press > New York Times

Health Care Limbo

...Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed that by saying that she was short on votes in the House for the easiest way to get a health bill into law, by just having the House approve a Senate-passed version of health reform.

"There isn't a market right now for proceeding with a full bill unless some changes are made," Pelosi told reporters, just after a somewhat contentious Democratic Caucus on the matter.

"You characterize it correctly," she told one reporter about the frustration-laden caucus meeting, "Unease would be a gentle word."

Liberals are refusing to support the Senate-passed health care bill, because of a variety of provisions that they don't care for. Some Democrats don't like the abortion funding restrictions. Many don't like the "Cornhusker Kickback" and the list goes on and on.

It's a maddening situation for Democrats, who seemed to be moving slowly but surely towards a final bill that would have just had enough votes to pass and be signed into law.

But the Bay State loss has done that in...

SOURCE: Jamie Dupree