Louisiana senator walks tightrope on health vote

Landrieu is one of a handful of centrist Democrats reluctant to support theplan to revamp the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry, the top priority inPresident Barack Obama’s domestic agenda.

And she faces a tough choice: defy the wishes of her party on a legislativepriority central to Obama’s promise of change, or defy the wishes of voters inher home state of Louisiana who are hostile to the proposals.

“Obama is very unpopular in the Deep South … and all of his legislation isunpopular,” said Bernie Pinsonat a pollster with Southern Media and OpinionResearch, a survey company based in Louisiana’s state capital Baton Rouge.

“If she votes for this it will drag her down,” he said.

Raising the pressure on Landrieu is the delicate state of the bill itself.After a monumental battle, the House of Representatives narrowly passed itsversion of healthcare legislation this month. Louisiana’s Anh Cao, a first-termlawmaker whose heavily Democratic district includes poorer sections of NewOrleans, was the sole Republican vote.

But unless the Senate bill attracts Republican support it will need all 60votes that the Democrats control in the chamber to avoid a filibuster, orprocedural block. One Republican, Olympia Snowe, voted for the bill in theFinance panel, but has not pledged her vote in the full Senate.

That puts Landrieu and fellow Democratic senators including Blanche Lincolnof Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska in a position of unusual influence.

It also offers a potential political advantage if she can persuade Louisianavoters of her reservations about a reform that would expand the federalgovernment, analysts said.

“The controlling coalition of voters in Louisiana is opposed to healthreform …. So she (Landrieu) has to talk small government solutions and lowtaxation,” said Robert Hogan, professor of political science at Louisiana StateUniversity in Baton Rouge.

“She is trying to … demonstrate her small government convictions but she isconflicted because this is a huge priority for Democrats,” said Hogan.

The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, prepared on Wednesday to unveilthe chamber’s bill, with the first test vote on the package expected by the endof the week.

MODERATE DEMOCRAT

Landrieu says she supports reform if it brings “stable, affordable healthinsurance” but she opposes a key element of the bill: a public option thatwould create a government-run plan to compete with private health insurers.

Reform is needed in part because of the crippling health bills faced bysmall businesses owners, Landrieu says.

“Small firms … pump almost a trillion dollars into the economy each year,create two-thirds of our nation’s new jobs annually, and account for more thanhalf of America’s work force,” she said in an opinion piece published inOctober.

“Too much of their money is going toward high health premiums that areincreasing faster than the prices of the products and services they provide,”said Landrieu, chair of the Senate’s committee on small business andentrepreneurship.

And on the face of it, health care reform that aims to provide universalcoverage offers significant benefits to Louisiana, a state with high rates ofpoverty where more than 20 percent of the population lacks healthinsurance.

Instead of a government-run insurance option, Landrieu is seeking supportfor a plan to use federal seed money to fund an insurance plan that wouldeventually be run and operated by a private board.

“She’s a moderate Democrat. She understands that the public option isanathema in her home state,” said Elliott Stonecipher a pollster based inShreveport, Louisiana.

POLITICAL PRESSURE

Landrieu does not face re-election until 2014 so would not face an immediatebacklash from hostile voters, unlike Lincoln who is due for re-election in2010.

Even so, for many Louisiana voters the reforms and the public optionrepresent a further encroachment of Washington bureaucrats into the privatesector.

“I am very concerned. If the government takes over the healthcare and itfails it will not go back to the private sector,” said Brenda O’Brock ofShreveport, Louisiana.

“With government in charge there will be no incentive to do better,” O’Brocksaid.

Such opinions are common given a state climate darkening for Democrats dueto demographic changes, said Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institutefor Southern Studies.

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast in2005 it tipped the state’s electoral balance toward the Republican Party bydisplacing hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were blacks central tothe Democratic Party in the Catholic south of the state.

As a result, trends favorable to Republicans right across the southeast —the country’s most conservative region — have been accelerated in Louisiana.The state voted overwhelmingly for Obama’s Republican challenger John McCain inthe 2008 presidential race.

But Landrieu also faces pressure from within her party, not least from anAfrican American minority that is key to her electoral base, particularly inthe south of the state, and which supports health reform.