Democrats focus on next healthcare move

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic leaders in the Congress prepared on Friday to take up President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul without Republican support as the White House promised a decision next week on how to proceed.

After a daylong healthcare summit on Thursday produced no Republican converts, Democrats said they would give Republicans a few days to offer new ideas before they push ahead on their own.

"I think we have good prospects for passing legislation," House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters, adding she thought Obama's summit made a difference. "It moved us closer to passing a bill."

The White House and congressional Democrats focused on taking up an overhaul of the $2.5 trillion healthcare system through a parliamentary tactic called reconciliation that allows approval by a simple majority vote.

That approach, which can only be used for budget-related measures, would bypass the need for 60 votes to clear procedural hurdles in the 100-member Senate. It requires only a simple Senate majority of 51 votes.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama would make an announcement next week about the best way to proceed on the overhaul and left the door open for the use of reconciliation.

Republican leaders made it clear on Friday they had no interest in working with Democrats to improve the healthcare overhaul. "We just don't care for the bill," Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican, said.

Pelosi rejected Republican suggestions Democrats start over on the healthcare bill or adopt a more incremental approach. "Doing this incrementally just doesn't work," she said.

Pelosi said she would put together a final package for action after consultation with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. "The next step will require seeing what the Senate can do" on a simple majority vote, she said.

Democrats in the Senate and House passed healthcare bills last year that would reshape the industry by cutting costs, regulating insurers and expanding coverage to tens of millions of Americans.

But efforts to merge the different measures and send a final version to Obama collapsed in January after Democrats lost their crucial 60th vote in a special U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts.

HEALTH STOCKS RISE

The prospects for another crack at passing a healthcare bill did not unsettle investors. The Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor index of health insurer stocks was up 0.4 percent on Friday, slightly outpacing the broader market.

The index has clawed back some of its underperformance since earlier this month when Democrats began targeting WellPoint Inc's premium rate increases.

"We expect that as resolution nears, healthcare stocks can outperform," John Sullivan, director of research at Leerink Swann, said in a research note.

With congressional elections approaching in November, Democrats are anxious to move past the healthcare debate and talk about job creation and the economy.

"We cannot have another yearlong debate about this," Obama said at Thursday's summit. "Is there enough serious effort that in a month's time or a few weeks' time or six weeks' time we could actually resolve something?"

"If we can't, then I think we've got to go ahead and make some decisions," he added, saying voters could pass judgment in November on the differing Republican and Democratic visions for the country.

Obama had hoped Thursday's summit would revive momentum in Congress for his faltering healthcare drive, but admitted at the end of the day it might not be possible to bridge the differences.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said he was discouraged and thought it was clear Democrats planned to ram through a version of the Senate-passed healthcare plan.

Reid seemed to reinforce that view, telling reporters, "It is time to do something and we are going to do it."

(Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf, Thomas Ferraro, David Alexander and Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Peter Cooney)