Arm-twisting wins 220-215 Medicare vote

The House passed a sweeping Medicare prescription-drug bill early yesterday, but only because Republicans would not let the measure die and refused to end the vote until enough lawmakers switched from “No” to “Yes.”

After substantial arm-twisting by Republican leaders, the Medicare bill passed at 5:53 a.m. by a vote of 220-215. It now goes to the Senate, where a key vote is expected tomorrow and where backers had hoped to avoid a Democratic filibuster.

“I feel much better this morning, now that the House of Representatives passed this legislation,” said Sen. John B. Breaux, Louisiana Democrat, who worked with Republicans to craft the bill. “I think you’ll see an entirely different atmosphere in the Senate.”

Mr. Breaux and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, said support in the Senate would be broader than in the House.

“I believe it’ll be a strong bipartisan vote. This is a bipartisan bill,” Mr. Frist said.

But yesterday afternoon, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said the way Republicans “rigged” the House vote prompted him to lead a filibuster.

“I think this bill would have been beaten on a fair vote in the House of Representatives, and so it was a phony vote in the House of Representatives, and now they are trying to jam us in the Senate,” Mr. Kennedy said.

“At this time, I think it’s still an uphill battle, but I think last night should be sufficiently outrageous to any Democrat, and to the American people, that they say we ought to just give time to do better,” he said.

However, President Bush, who has made the bill a major part of his domestic agenda, called on the Senate to follow the House’s lead.

“It is time for the Senate to act. I urge the Senate to pass this good piece of legislation so that I can sign it into law,” Mr. Bush said in a statement yesterday.

Bush had called wavering lawmakers from Air Force One on his way home from London to lobby for passage, Reuters reported. His top political aide, Karl Rove, placed calls from Buckingham Palace, several House Republicans said.

At stake is the largest new entitlement program since Medicare initially passed nearly 40 years ago. The bill is expected to cost $395 billion over 10 years.

The measure would give millions of seniors voluntary prescription-drug coverage for the first time for a premium of about $35 a month and an annual deductible of $250. The government would pay 75 percent of a senior’s annual drug costs up to $2,250.

Beneficiaries would pay out-of-pocket costs between $2,250 and $3,600, the so-called “doughnut hole,” and, beyond that point, the government would pick up 90 percent of costs.

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