The New Health Dialogue

It’s a big weekend for snow -- and Snowe -- inside the beltway. We’re expecting to get snowed in on Saturday as a major winter storm hits DC. And according to The New York Times, the White House is getting Snowe-d in this weekend as well:

… consider how [Snowe] spent her Thursday: First she attended a meeting at the White House for roughly 80 to 90 minutes, a good portion of it one-on-one with President Obama. Later, she and Mr. Obama had a half-hour follow-up call. By any measure, that is a substantial chunk of the president’s day.

… In an interview with reporters at the Capitol on Thursday, Ms. Snowe described her conversations with Mr. Obama as productive. “They are helpful,” she said. “We have a chance to share our views. So I get a better understanding of his vantage point, his perspective, where he’s coming from on these issues, and likewise he gets to hear my concerns and what I’m thinking at this moment in time. It helps to keep those lines of communications open. We have good free-flowing, straightforward, constructive, productive conversations.”

Thanks to a late night (or an early morning, depending on your perspective) cloture vote (63-33) on the defense spending appropriations bill last night, the Senate will vote on the defense bill early Saturday morning. This clears the way for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s goal of having a vote on health reform by Christmas Eve. The only remaining obstacle is getting to the 60 votes needed for final passage. Ben Nelson (D-NE) is still unsatisfied with the current legislation, and favors stricter language restricting the use of federal funds to pay for abortion coverage. Nelson wasn’t happy with the compromise language created by Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) and Senator Reid.

With Nelson still on the fence, the Democrats’ other hope for vote number 60 lies with Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Snowe is moderate, and the only Republican member of the bipartisan Gang of Six from the Senate Finance Committee to vote yes on the Finance bill. One of Snowe’s issues with Reid’s final merged Senate bill was the inclusion of a public option, which she opposed. Now that the public option is out -- much to the chagrin of progressives -- many believe Snowe’s vote could be in reach. But Senator Snowe isn’t in any hurry for the bill to go through, and isn’t a fan of the Christmas deadline:

Ms. Snowe has said repeatedly that she thinks the health care bill is vitally important and would love to be able to vote for it. But she has also contended that Democrats are rushing the process unnecessarily and that as a result the bill will be rife with errors that could take years to fix.

Whatever happens, we should all expect heavy Snowefall in DC this weekend.