Judd Gregg: Don't Count on Obama Keeping His Word to "Fix" Obamacare

Senator Judd Gregg has a warning for those House members who may be willing to vote for the Senate bill because Obama has promised to "fix" their objections:

The White House may renege on passing fixes to the Senate's healthcare bill once the House has passed it, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) claimed Thursday.

Gregg, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, suggested that President Barack Obama may back off making changes to the Senate bill through the reconciliation process, which the White House and the Senate have said they would use to make changes to the Senate bill in order to placate House members.

"They're using reconciliation to pass the great big bill," Gregg said during an appearance on CNBC. "Once they pass the great big bill, I wouldn't be surprised if the White House didn't care if reconciliation passed. I mean, why would they?"...

"If you're in the House and you're saying, 'Well, I'm going to vote for this because I'm going to get a reconcilation bill,' I would think twice about that," Gregg said. "First because, procedurally, it's going to be hard to put a reconciliation bill through the Senate. Second because I'm not sure there's going to be a lot of energy to do it, from the president or his people."

"In my opinion, reconciliation is an exercise for buying votes, which, once they have the votes they really don't need it," he said.

The Senate bill is much more in line with what Obama wants than the House bill was. Once the House passes the Senate version Obama can sign it and get what he wants. His motivation to change it, and especially to take things out of it he likes such as abortion funding, will be zero. The same will hold true for Harry Reid and the Senate Dem leadership. They like their bill - why would they want to change it once it's passed?