WASHINGTON — After weeks of fractious debate that threatened to derail President Obama's healthcare overhaul, House Democrats on Wednesday reached a critical if fragile agreement that appeared to pave the way for the chamber to vote on a package in September.
The deal, worked out between a group of fiscally conservative Democrats and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, changes the way a proposed government-run insurance plan would operate in order to allay concerns that it could crowd out private insurers.
Brokered with help from the White House, the agreement also moves to cut more than $100 billion from the bill's $1-trillion-plus price tag, according to lawmakers who worked on the deal. And it would exclude more small businesses from a requirement to provide employees with health insurance.
Democrats still face big obstacles in their quest to send legislation to the White House.
Those hurdles include mollifying liberal lawmakers, who expressed outrage at the deal reached Wednesday.
"I think they've had an inordinate amount of input," Rep. Pete Stark (D-Fremont) said of the more conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats. "And every time people have given them some consideration, they want more."
In addition, Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.), a Blue Dog leader, said he thought that "the bulk" of his caucus might oppose the House bill despite the latest compromise.
But the agreement comes at a crucial time for Obama and his congressional allies. The fiscally conservative Democrats had blocked progress on the legislation in Waxman's committee for more than a week, threatening to leave House discussions in disarray as lawmakers prepared to leave town for their August recess.
With an important Senate committee still mired in difficult negotiations on its own bill, momentum on the overhaul threatened to stall.
"This will move the bill forward," House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters Wednesday as news of the House deal broke.
The agreement delays a vote by the full House until September, satisfying the demands of many moderate Democratic lawmakers who wanted time to absorb the details of the complex legislation. "We'll have a lot of time to review where we are," Hoyer said.
Obama praised the progress Wednesday and called the work of the fiscally conservative Democrats "extraordinarily constructive in strengthening this legislation and bringing down its cost."
