huffingtonpost.com | After an intense White House lobbying effort, Dennis Kucinich announced on Wednesday morning that he has decided to vote for health care reform when it comes before the House in the next few days, reversing his previous position and giving a boost to President Obama, congressional leaders and the reform effort.
"In the past week it's become clear that the vote on the final health bill will be very close," Kucinich said at a Capitol Hill news conference. "I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I'm quite aware of the historic fight, which has lasted the last century.
"I have doubts about the bill. This is not the bill I wanted to support," Kucinich said even as he promised that he would vote "yes" on the bill.
"If my vote is to be counted, let it count now for passage of the bill, hopefully in the direction of comprehensive health care reform," the Ohio Democrat said.
Kucinich had been one of the few remaining holdouts who felt that the bill did not go far enough. Kucinich, a former presidential candidate, objected that the bill did not include a robust public insurance option tied to Medicare rates and did not include a provision to allow states to enact single-payer legislation if they so chose. His support gives House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a much-needed vote as she looks for 216 members to move the package through this week.
Kucinich came under intense pressure from liberals, with blogger Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos, going so far as to suggest he should face a primary challenge if he votes no. House leadership, however, largely considered his vote lost.
On Monday, Obama flew on Air Force One with Kucinich to a health-care rally to the lawmaker's home state of Ohio. During the flight, Obama pressed Kucinich on the merits of the bill. Obama also brought Kucinich to the White House along with other members of Congress, though Kucinich left that meeting indicating he would still oppose the bill.
Obama's ability to sway Kucinich undermines the White House's longstanding position that it couldn't get a public option through Congress because it didn't have the votes. The president, it turns out, does have the ability to sway a member of Congress, even one as committed to a position as Kucinich.
"He's always persuasive," said Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), who was also on Air Force One with Kucinich and Obama.
Fudge is also holding out from the liberal end and got a pitch from Obama during the flight, she told HuffPost Tuesday. "Did it change my mind at that point? No. But it gave me some other things to think about, so I'm really glad that we had the conversation."
She said she is still on the fence but appears to be highly likely to support the bill.
"I'm on the fence. Certainly I'm leaning towards passing the bill, obviously, voting for it, because I think that we need reform. I just need to see what is in the bill," she said. "I need to see if, in fact, it does all the things that we've been told it does. I need to see how it's going to affect states, how it's going to affect people who work every day. How is it going to affect their premiums going forward? There are just some things I need to see. But I am certainly for reform. I just need to see if this is the bill that I can support to do it