Members of New York’s Congressional delegation said yesterday they were optimistic about enacting health care reform within weeks, even in the wake of Tuesday’s Republican upset in Massachusetts, and would consider supporting dramatically transformed legislation than had previously been passed, so long as they can salvage core principles of the earlier bills.

“I think we will have health care reform. The question is, to what degree,” said Rep. Eliot Engel, who has been a leading voice on health care. “We can eliminate some of the more controversial provisions… I think that maybe our goal will be a little more modest.  Maybe what we were trying to do was too much for the public to swallow all at once.”

While a few representatives, including Rep. Anthony Weiner, said they were expecting the issue to be shelved for weeks or months, many, including Engel and fellow senior member Rep. Louise Slaughter, said they remained hopeful.

"I think he's pretty much alone in that,” said one staffer about Weiner.  “I think they wish they'd gotten it done six months ago." 

“I think that a delay only makes it harder to pass the bill,” said Engel. “We made a mistake in August by reassessing and giving the Tea Party people a chance to disrupt the town hall meetings.” 

Many representatives said they were staying in constant touch with congressional leadership about new options, but could not predict how a new bill might fare until they saw the details.

“When we say paring down, do we mean taking a whole different approach?” said Rep. Jose Serrano. “No one can really tell you how they'll vote.” 

At the same time, some insiders mentioned that the concessions made by progressive leaders on Wednesday, such as SEIU President Andy Stern’s announcement that despite earlier disavowals he now favored signing the Senate bill, may have swayed representatives’ willingness to bend their ideals and make sure a bill gets signed.

Priorities in new or reworked legislation, Engel said, would include several insurance reforms: requiring insurance companies to accept patients with pre-existing conditions, preventing them from placing caps on per-patient spending, and making insurance more portable, so that people could stay with company insurers after leaving jobs, for example.

But many New York representatives, including Engel, said they would not accept in any bill – including the standing Senate version – measures that hurt the state, especially cash incentives to expand coverage that would benefit other states and effectively penalize New York, a so-called “do-gooder” state that has already expanded coverage on its own initiative.

Several representatives said that New York could see a silver lining in the Massachusetts election results, since a transformed bill, or set of bills, might end up avoiding some of the pitfalls for the state that are currently in the Senate bill.

But others remained unsure. A staffer for Anthony Weiner, for example said it may just be time to be realistic in hopes of moving on to more attainable legislative goals.

“I don't think he's backing off the bill; he just thinks we have a compromised 59-vote majority.  Common sense tells you you can’t do it,” said one of Weiner’s staffers. “What we were doing didn't work.  It doesn't change what we want to do in the end.”