Obama shows signs of caving in on health reforms in wake of shock victory by Cosmo centrefold


Barack Obama was today poised to scale back sweeping health reforms after a stinging defeat at the hands of a former male model who once posed naked for Cosmopolitan magazine.

Little-known Republican Scott Brown snatched the US Senate seat formerly held by Mr Obama's mentor the late Ted Kennedy which had been in Democratic hands since 1952.

His stunning victory in Massachusetts - a year to the day since Mr Obama was inaugurated - has been seen as a referendum on the President's 12 months in office.

Scott Brown

Model student: Mr Brown poses nude for Cosmopolitan to help pay his way through a law degree

Barack Obama

Uphill struggle: But Barack Obama insists he will push his healthcare bill through

Mr Obama and his allies now face an uphill struggle to put his 'mission' for America - including controversial healthcare reforms - back on track.

Crucially, the Massachusetts result means the Democrats have now lost the Senate 'super majority' which had prevented Republicans blocking or delaying the passage of legislation by filibustering - a technique in which an opposition member extends a speech until time runs out for a vote.

For a party to prevent this happening it most hold 60 of the 100 Senate seats. With the loss of Massachusetts, the Democrats now hold just 59.

Without the 60/40 majority Mr Obama's healthcare reforms, which would extend insurance coverage to 30million uninsured Americans and have divided the nation, now appear to be on shaky ground.

Within hours of the defeat, a simpler, less ambitious health bill had emerged from senators determined to posh it through Congress.

The new proposals retain limiting the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage to people with medical problems, allowing young adults to stay on their parents' policies, helping small businesses and low-income people pay insurance premiums and changing government health care for the elderly to encourage payment for quality care instead of sheer volume of services.

Another option, which called for the House to try to quickly pass the Senate version of the broader bill - bypassing the Senate problem created by the loss of the Massachusetts seat to Republican Scott Brown - appeared to be losing favour.

Speaking last night, Obama said the election results would not sour his interest in passing a healthcare bill.

'Now, I could have said, "Well, we'll just do what's safe, we'll just take on those things that are completely non-controversial,"' he said.

'The problem is, the things that are non-controversial end up being the things that don't solve the problem.'

Yet, the goal of trying to cover nearly all Americans would be put off further into the future.

Obama urged lawmakers not to try to jam a bill through, but scale the proposal down to what he called 'those elements of the package that people agree on.'

It takes 218 votes to pass legislation. A majority of House Democrats oppose a tax on high-cost insurance plans in the Senate bill that labour unions, a core Democratic party constituency, see as a direct hit on their members.

Victory: Massachusetts State Senator Scott Brown celebrates his win in the special election

Victory: Massachusetts State Senator Scott Brown celebrates his win in Boston by holding up a copy of the city's paper

Party time: Balloons and confetti fall as the results are made official

Party time: Balloons and confetti fall as the results are made official

Cosmo

A week ago, House and Senate Democrats were working out the differences in their respective bills, and a quick resolution seemed likely. But after Mr Brown's victory feuding broke out.

The election in Massachusetts for what was regarded as the safest Democrat seat in the country should have been a shoo-in for Martha Coakley.

But the Democratic candidate gained only 47.1 per cent of the vote to Brown's 51.9 per cent after spelling the state's name wrong in an advert and taking a week off from campaigning at Christmas.

A jubilant Mr Brown said he would be the pivotal 41st Republican vote against the healthcare overhaul.

'People don't want this trillion-dollar healthcare plan that is being forced on the American people,' he told cheering supporters at a Boston hotel. 'The Democrats thought they owned this seat. They thought they couldn't lose. You all set them straight.'

The White House last night denied Mr Obama was out of touch with the nation.

 

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His senior adviser, David Axelrod, said: 'We'll have to think through this next year from the standpoint of tactics but in substance the mission can't change.

'If the mission changes, then we really betray the people who sent us here. The President is thinking through what lessons there are and how to move forward.

'He is every bit as determined as he was a year ago to make this system work for everyday people in this country and to make this economy work for everyday people, middleclass people in this country, and that was very clear. I think it would be a terrible mistake to walk away now.'

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs added that the President knew Americans were 'upset' and 'angry' and his administration shared part of the blame for his party's defeat in Massachusetts.

'Everybody bears some responsibility, certainly the White House,' Mr Gibbs said.

To describe Massachusetts as the nation's Democratic heartland would still be an understatement.

Until Mr Brown's victory it was the only state in the US where at the time all Congressional seats and all statewide-elected offices were held by a single party.

And it is the home of the Kennedy family which has dominated the political landscape for generations.

The state has two Senate seats and Mr Brown became the first Republican to win one of them since 1972. His predecessor in the seat he won, Ted Kennedy - a lifelong-healthcare reformer - held it for 47 years from 1962 until his death last August.

His brother, John F Kennedy, held it before him after taking it from a Republican in 1952.

Mr Brown's triumph leaves the Republicans looking to make substantial gains in the mid-term elections in November.

SENATOR BEEFCAKE'S NAKED AMBITION

Ayla Brown

Pop idol: Daughter Ayla

The man who delivered the major upset to President Obama was being called Senator Beefcake yesterday in reference to his past as a male model.

Scott Brown, 50, posed naked for Cosmopolitan with only his hand protecting his modesty to win the magazine's America's Sexiest Male contest for 1982.

He was in the middle of his final law exams at Boston College when he was paid the equivalent of £614 for the photoshoot. He also modelled and appeared in television commercials.

Mr Brown told the magazine he liked 'slinky girls' and that he wasn't shy about taking his clothes off.

'I'm not ashamed of my body,' he said. 'I work hard enough to keep it in shape. When you go to the beach, you automatically seek out the best bodies, female and male. Why should it be different in a magazine?'

He still keeps in shape as a triathlete who rises at 5am to train. On the campaign trail he drove a 2005 GMC pick-up truck with almost 200,000 miles on the clock.

When President Obama mocked television ads featuring his truck, Brown quipped: 'When he criticised my truck, that's where I draw the line.'

His 21-year-old daughter, Ayla, is a singer who reached the semifinals of the reality TV show American Idol and has recorded a couple of CDs.

At his victory party, Mr Brown said on live TV: 'To anyone who's watching, she's available. Only kidding. Now I'm going to get into trouble when I get home.' Mr Brown has been married for 23 years to Gail Huff, a Boston TV news reporter. They have another daughter, Arianna.

His current success seemed unlikely when he was growing up.

As a boy of 12 who liked Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath he was arrested for stealing albums from a record store and has described himself as a 'jerk' whose mother was 'on welfare, a little bit'.

His parents divorced when he was one and each remarried three times.

A lawyer and favourite of the gun lobby, he has been a member of the Massachusetts National Guard for 30 years and holds the rank of lieutenant colonel.

During the 2008 presidential race he insinuated Mr Obama might have been born out of wedlock.

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