Illinois Reps Waver on Health Care

Illinois Democrats whose votes helped squeak a health care reform bill through the U.S. House are wavering, illustrating just how big the challenge remains to get a final bill to the president's desk.

The House measure must now find its way through the more conservative U.S. Senate without being watered down so much that the final compromise package can't get back through the House.

The positions of the Illinois delegation demonstrate the challenge.

Staunch pro-choice advocate Jan Schakowsky, for example, voted for the bill that despite a last-minute provision severely limiting coverage for abortions.

But like many pro-choice Democrats, she vows not to do it again if and when the bill passes comes back around for a final vote. Pushing the bill forward with more opportunities to tinker was one thing; the law of the land is another.

At least one other member of the delegation - Mike Quigley - is following Schakowsky's lead, according to Progress Illinois.

On the other hand, for fellow Illinois congressmen Dan Lipinski and Jerry Costello, the anti-abortion provision was crucial.

It's not an irreconcilable issue; like with the public option, opt-out provisions and other caveats could conceivably be written to satisfy all sides. But it's a tiny needle to thread.

At the same time, suburban Democratic congressmen Melissa Bean and Bill Foster are wavering over other aspects of the bill though they also just helped pass it through the House.

Bean worries over measure's price tag.

"While these reforms are deficit neutral, I'm seeking improved cost containment measures in the final version of the bill before I can support it," Bean told the Daily Herald.

And Foster, the paper reports, is "perplexed about the design of the public option."

Which may not matter much because the public option doesn't appear to have support in the Senate, which could kill the bill in the House.

"We're walking through a minefield," Sen. Dick Durbin told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

And in a minefield, there are only a few narrow paths out.

Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter, a Chicago-centric news and culture review.