WASHINGTON — Scott Brown’s decisive Senate victory in Massachusetts imperiled the fate of the Democratic health care overhaul as House Democrats indicated they would not quickly approve a Senate-passed health care measure and send it to President Obama.
After a meeting of House Democratic leaders Tuesday night even as Mr. Brown’s victory was being declared, top lawmakers said they were weighing their options. But the prospect of passing the health care overhaul by pushing the Senate plan through the House appeared to significantly diminish.
Noting that the election in Massachusetts turned on a variety of different factors such as the economy and local issues, Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland and a top party campaign strategist, acknowledged that resistance to the emerging health legislation also factored in the outcome of the Massachusetts race.
“Health care was also part of the debate and the people of Massachusetts were right to be upset about provisions in the Senate bill,” Mr. Van Hollen said, referring to “special deals” included in the bill to win the votes of Democratic senators and round up 60 votes.
The comment was a clear indication that Democrats were recalibrating their approach on health care, leaving them a diminishing and politically difficult set of choices.
Pushing the Senate plan through the House was favored by some lawmakers and strategists as a way to quickly deliver the president a bill on a signature domestic achievement, since it would require just one final House vote. Remaining problems could be worked out with a subsequent piece of legislation.
But many House Democrats expressed deep reservations about the Senate bill. Those complaints, combined with the message sent by the Massachusetts electorate, apparently were sufficient to leave Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants reluctant by Tuesday night about moving in that direction.
Democrats now face decisions on whether to give up on the health care fight – an approach few lawmakers appear willing to entertain – or perhaps pull together a scaled-back measure and use special procedural rules that would eliminate the need for 60 votes in the Senate. But it is not clear how many of the key provisions of the legislation could be passed under such a procedure.
At the same time, Mr. Brown appeared likely to claim his seat quickly, as Democrats said their new Republican colleague would be sworn in as soon as he could present documents certifying his election. When he takes office, Democrats will no longer have the 60 votes needed to surmount a certain Republican filibuster of the legislation.
“The people of Massachusetts have spoken,” Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader, said. The timing of Mr. Brown’s swearing in has in fact been a point of contention. Republicans and conservative activists have raised the possibility that Democrats might stall and use the delay to force through a final health care bill while Senator Paul Kirk, the Democrat appointed to the seat, was still a member of the Senate.
Democrats had discounted that possibility and such a scenario seemed all but dead Tuesday as Senator James Webb, a Virginia Democrat and supporter of the measure, called for the Senate to take no votes on health care legislation until Mr. Brown could assume the seat vacated by the late Edward M. Kennedy.
The White House, signaling a recognition of the new political terrain, even referred to Mr. Brown as “Senator Brown” in a statement, suggesting that Democrats would not maneuver to delay his swearing-in.