As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid prepares to
unveil his health care bill to Democrats at 5 p.m. today,
President Obama has moved away from a year-end deadline to finish
the health care bill, telling NBC
that he expects to sign a bill by his State of the Union address,
typically at end of January. But Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic
whip, would
not predict on CNN yesterday that Democrats would even get it
done by then.
Should Reid release his bill tonight with a preliminary score by
the Congressional Budget Office, he'll need to obtain 60 votes on
a motion to proceed, allowing the bill to be brought to the
floor. He was hoping to hold that vote this week, but it's not
clear whether he even has the votes for this first procedural
hurdle, and Republicans have a number of delaying tactics at
their disposal. Today, the Senate GOP is reminding everybody of a
letter sent by eight Democrats last month demanding a full
CBO score before any procedural vote on the bill -- but the
estimate expected later today will be preliminary. In addition,
Sen. Tom Coburn may demand that the entire bill be read on the
Senate floor, but Jonathan Cohn at TNR notes
that Reid could respond by leaving the Senate open on
Thanksgiving week, allowing Republicans who are so inclined to
read the bill then.
Even assuming Reid has the votes to get the bill to the floor,
the actual debate and amendment process won't commence before
Nov. 30, the Monday after Thanksgiving. Reid and House Majority
Leader Steny Hoyer have said that they intend to close Congress
for the year on Dec. 18 -- giving them just 19 days, including
weekends, to work with. Keep in mind they still have to pass a
number of appropriations bills, and Hoyer is now promising an
additional jobs bill, essentially another stimulus package.
Should Reid pass something in the Senate during this narrow
window, the bill still has to be reconciled with the House
version, and then it must pass both chambers again. But should
the Stupak language and/or the government-run plan ultimately get
stripped, it suddenly changes all of the vote calculations in the
House.
