I’ve been skeptical that members of the Hispanic Caucus might truly vote against Obama on health care this week, but I’m rethinking that now. La Raza — which had to be expecting to get something out of the White House — is not in a good mood. From Investor’s Business Daily:
Eric Rodriguez, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s top Hispanic advocacy group, told IBD that he was not optimistic that the House Democratic leadership and the Obama administration would include the changes that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is seeking to the health care bill.
That would make it a tough vote for the mostly liberal caucus. All 23 of its House members supported the House health bill in November, but that has since been replaced by a Senate-written version that limits participation by illegal immigrants in the health insurance exchanges the bill would create.
The caucus met privately with President Obama late last week to warn they could not support the Senate bill without changes.
Rodriguez told IBD that, while the final language hasn’t been made public yet, what they have heard so far from the administration is that it would be “very, very hard” to include the changes the caucus wants.
“There are not a lot of reasons to be optimistic at this stage of the game,” he said. “We haven’t gotten a lot of positive signals that the issues that we have been raising (will be addressed).”