5:55 PM, Mar 9, 2010 ·
Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak said yesterday at a townhall in his
home state, "I'm more optimistic than I was a week ago" that a deal
could be reached to pass a health care bill that bans public funding of
abortion. Some speculated that this meant Stupak was ready to cave.
"Obviously they don’t know me," Stupak said in an interview this
afternoon with THE WEEKLY STANDARD. "If I didn’t" cave in November,
"why would I do it now after all the crap I’ve been through?"
"Everyone’s going around saying there’s a compromise—there’s no such
thing," Stupak said. What's changed between this week and last, Stupak
went on, is that he had his first real conversation with Majority
Leader Steny Hoyer and Congressman Henry Waxman about fixing the bill.
But Stupak made one thing very clear: While he's optimistic, there's
a lot of confusion about how the House would structure a bill that he
could vote for. Stupak says "the majority party can get it done. Where
there’s a will there’s a way." But: "No one has said here's how you do
it, here's the legislative scheme."
Stupak affirmed that he will not settle for an agreement to pass the
bill now and fix the bill's problems on abortion later: "If they say
'we’ll give you a letter saying we'll take care of this later,' that’s
not acceptable because later never comes."
http://weeklystandard.com/tws/daily/daily.asp#blog-422831