7 day forecast
Altmire a high-profile swing vote on health care
Share with others:
WASHINGTON -- For most of the 90-minute meeting, U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire sat as about 50 members of a "tea party" group from the Pittsburgh area vented, pleaded, yelled and quizzed him about health care reform.
Then the McCandless Democrat stood to respond, taking exception to their accusations that he is susceptible to bullying from party leadership and the White House.
"What you're doing right now is the pressure," Mr. Altmire said. "The president and the speaker, they don't have the retribution."
Mr. Altmire is treading a thin line on the massive, controversial health care reform bill. Despite personal appeals from President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., he voted against the House of Representatives' bill in November, saying he was not convinced it would rein in costs in the long run.
But he has shown signs that he could back the bill's latest incarnation, a leaner measure that could do more to trim long-term costs. The process leading to final passage could begin as early as this week, as the House must first pass the Senate bill, followed by a package of changes through the reconciliation process that the Senate could pass with 51 votes instead of the usual 60.
Mr. Altmire is one of the most high-profile swing votes on a measure with a razor-thin margin for passage. It passed the House 220-215, but several of his colleagues who voted for it then have indicated they will vote against the new bill -- which, because of departures and the death Feb. 8 of Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Johnstown, now will need 216 votes to pass.
Mr. Altmire, one of 39 Democrats who voted against it, has been publicly undecided and openly courted, speaking twice with the president in recent weeks.
In an interview, Mr. Altmire said he expressed his concerns about the bill to Mr. Obama. They talked about the reconciliation package the White House is preparing and plans to reveal after the Congressional Budget Office determines its price tag.
But the only effective lobbying, he said, comes from his own constituents.
Before meeting with the tea party group Wednesday, Mr. Altmire also met with a manufacturing group with a membership that is evenly divided on the issue. He's also heard from patient groups, consumer advocates and others who favor the legislation. His office, he said, has been inundated with correspondence from both sides.
Some progressives were angry enough at his earlier "no" vote to contemplate fielding a challenger in the Democratic primary, but none stepped forward.
Barry Pitek, of Sewickley Heights, chairman of the Quaker Valley Democratic Organization, said he wished Mr. Altmire had an opponent in the primary race. Mr. Altmire's votes on health care and other issues "angered, and that's putting it mildly" many supporters who helped him unseat Republican Melissa Hart in 2006, Mr. Pitek said.
"This guy has gone out of his way to make sure people know he's not like the president -- and I think that's a mistake," Mr. Pitek said.
But for his re-election campaign, it's probably shrewd: Sen. John McCain beat Mr. Obama in the presidential race by 11 points in Mr. Altmire's district, and Mr. Obama's national popularity has sunk since 2008.
Mr. Altmire often touts his votes against party leadership -- and his office recently boasted of his ranking in National Journal as one of the House's most conservative Democrats.
Keith Rothfus, of Edgeworth, who is vying with former U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan for the Republican nomination to run against Mr. Altmire in the fall, has attacked Mr. Altmire as a big spender, citing his votes for the stimulus and Mr. Obama's budget.
A "yes" vote on health care would give Republicans another potential weapon to use against Mr. Altmire, though Mr. Rothfus said "I think he's vulnerable either way." Mr. Altmire said callers to his offices in recent weeks have tilted more against the bill. He was intrigued when told of a poll conducted on behalf of antihealth bill coalition StartOver! showing 58 percent of voters in his district oppose the Democratic health reform proposal, with only 28 percent favoring it.
Given the magnitude of the vote, he said, his campaign is considering conducting a district poll of its own. Assessing his constituents' views on health care is not as easy as gauging their stances on illegal immigration or creating a cap-and-trade market for carbon pollution -- issues on which Mr. Altmire said he figured voters in his district are against, 10-to-1.
"I wish it was that easy on health care, and it's not," Mr. Altmire said. "When it divides down the middle, I have other obligations to think through that impact on the vote."
In this case, Mr. Altmire said, because the district is split he will not rely solely on constituent input.
One factor to consider: his personal feeling about the bill, coming in part from his experience in the health field as a Congressional staffer working on the Clinton administration's reform bill and as a lobbyist for the Federation of American Hospitals and UPMC.
Mr. Altmire also figures this is the last chance for a major overhaul of the health system for years -- so he has to decide whether the bill would be better or worse than the status quo.
Yet neither of those considerations, he said, has brought him any closer to a definitive answer.
Because of his fence-riding position, Mr. Altmire has popped up frequently in national newspaper coverage and talking about the bill on Fox News. At home, he said, he is constantly approached and asked about the health bill. He said people often come into their conversation with misperceptions about the bill that he seeks to correct.
During one recent meeting in Washington, he said, some constituents listed concerns such as the government-run "public option" health insurer and the mandate that employers provide health coverage or face a fine. Mr. Altmire informed them that none of their objections was actually still in the Senate bill.
Then, he said, they became more vague, claiming the bill constitutes a "government takeover" of health care. Mr. Altmire said that argument is bogus without the public option.
"Those are the folks you're never going to win no matter what," he said.
His insistence that the Senate bill is an improvement did not go over well with the tea party group Wednesday, as Charlie Robinson, 69, of Middlesex, laid out his points in blunt terms.
"If you have 10 bad apples in a basket and take three out, you still have seven bad apples," Mr. Robinson said. "You are misreading your constituents in the worst way."
Many of the tea partiers left the meeting grumbling that Mr. Altmire was going to vote for the bill, though many of them thought the same thing when they met with him before the November vote.
Then, Mr. Altmire didn't announce his position until he cast the vote. Once again, he's uncommitted and dodging any attempts to pin him down.
Said Mr. Robinson, "He's smooth as silk."
RUNNING LATE?
DID YOU REMEMBER TO SET
YOUR CLOCK AHEAD ONE HOUR? DAYLIGHT SAVING BEGAN AT 2 A.M.
DID YOU REMEMBER TO SET
YOUR CLOCK AHEAD ONE HOUR? DAYLIGHT SAVING BEGAN AT 2 A.M.
DID YOU REMEMBER TO SET
YOUR CLOCK AHEAD ONE HOUR? DAYLIGHT SAVING BEGAN AT 2 A.M.
First Published March 14, 2010 12:09 am
