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IowaPolitics.com: Biden highlights health care vote in speech to Iowa Dems
11/22/2009

By Andrew Duffelmeyer
IowaPolitics.com

DES MOINES -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden took the stage Saturday night at the annual Jefferson Jackson Dinner in Des Moines just as the U.S. Senate mustered up 60 votes to overcome the threat of a filibuster and bring health care reform to the floor.
 
“For the first time in our nation’s history, those who have health insurance will be secure in being able to keep it, and those who don’t will have access to it,” Biden said to applause from Democratic supporters.
 
The nation’s second-in-command was the keynote speaker at the Iowa Democratic Party’s biggest fundraising event of the year Saturday night. Gov. Chet Culver, Lt. Gov. Patty Judge and U.S. Reps. Bruce Braley and Leonard Boswell also spoke at the event.
 
Biden said the media declared in August that health care reform was “dead,” but he announced, “it’s alive and well and it will pass.”
 
The seven-term senator from Delaware said he was on the phone thanking his former colleagues for their votes just before his speech to the crowd of nearly 1,500.

Biden said there is “every reason to believe that those who voted for reform will be rewarded and those who voted against it will be held accountable.”
 
A pre-recorded message from U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin was played earlier at the event, as Harkin was in Washington rallying Senate Democrats to begin debate on the landmark health care reform bill.
 
Harkin said he believed they would have the 60 votes to proceed with debate “about the time you’re sitting down to dinner here in Des Moines,” and he was right.
 
“We’re going to tell the Republicans you can delay us but you can’t stop us,” Harkin said. “I’m confident the Democratic caucus will hold together.”
 
Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said “no member of our caucus will stand in the way of this achievement” and that he will push for the Senate to work long hours and weekends until the bill is passed.
 
Beside health care, Biden also used his speech to bolster support for Gov. Chet Culver, calling him a great leader and candidate that “inherited an economic situation like every governor in America that’s of no fault of his own.”
 
Earlier in the night Culver highlighted his own accomplishments, citing a focus on renewable energy, flood recovery and job creation as pillars of his administration – as well as not raising taxes.
 
“I want to make it crystal clear to anyone and everyone thinking about running for governor next year, I welcome a spirited debate about our record of accomplishment,” Culver said. “I welcome a healthy debate about the future direction of our state.”
 
Finally, Biden attacked critics of himself and President Barack Obama, saying the administration's accomplishments in its first 10 months -- regulating tobacco and the credit card industry, passing a fair pay act and broadening hate crime legislation to include sexual orientation -- are often overlooked.
 
“Because the problems are so large, it makes those accomplishments pale in comparison to what you and I know we have to do and will do,” Biden said, also citing a 10 percent swing in the GDP and a stabilization of the housing market as positive signs for job creation beginning next year.

Biden last appeared at the dinner just two years ago, as one of six Democratic presidential candidates including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd. That event was attended by about 9,000 people.
 
The cost to attend the Iowa Democratic Party’s largest fundraiser of the year ran from $100 for a ticket to $10,000 for a table, and party spokeswoman Ali Glisson said nearly 1,500 people attended.


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