How Close We Came To Disaster

According to Tom Harkin, the Obamacare deal was done. And then, along came Brown.

Sen. Tom Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Health Committee, said negotiators from the White House, Senate and House reached a final deal on healthcare reform days before Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts.

Labor leaders had announced an agreement with White House and congressional representatives over an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans on the Thursday before the special election.

The latest revelation shows how agonizingly close Democrats came to passing a final healthcare bill in time for President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

But Sen.-Elect Brown’s stunning victory on Jan. 19 gave Republicans control of 41 seats in the Senate, enough to sustain a GOP filibuster of the healthcare bill.