We still don’t have a bill or a score from the Congressional Budget Office and in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, support for passing Democrats’ health care legislation has dropped to 32 percent, yet Democrats are still pushing to pass a bill before Christmas.
Sen. Max Baucus told the Hill that they are prepared to vote on Christmas Day, while the Politico reports that “Senators privately considered one scenario Wednesday that would have them casting a final vote at 7 p.m. Christmas Eve.”
Passage of the health care bill would require three 60-vote thresholds, which would have to occur over the course of several days, meaning that Senate Majority Reid would have to begin that process — i.e. file cloture — this weekend.
Of course, all of this is contingent on him getting 60 votes. So far, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Ben Nelson are holdouts, while people assume that Sens. Russ Feingold and Roland Burris will be onboard, but they haven’t declared that they would be.