Pelosi Wants A Health Care Bill By August, But First, All Eyes On Senate
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been pretty adamant: She would prefer to pass a health care bill by early August, and would be willing to hold the House in session past a scheduled recess to get there. But she's also unwilling to move unless the Senate does...something.
'[I]f we're done, and they're not done and they're gone, what is the point?" Pelosi said in a meeting with reporters yesterday. "It's interesting to me that people are saying, 'Don't leave until it's done.' I don't know how much more we can do if the Senate is not going to move."
The concern, as I suggested earlier today, is that the Senate may be on a completely different script. Nobody knows--or at least no Democrats know. And it would be politically risky for Pelosi to ask her vulnerable members to take a vote on a big issue if the Senate is doing something significantly different.
And on that score, she's also willing to wait. "I'm not afraid of August," Pelosi said at a press conference today. "It's a month."
Her mark seems to be the Senate Finance Committee: "I think that some of the negotiations that are going on now [with House Blue Dogs] will be facilitated by the Senate doing something, because it removes some questions as to what are they doing," she said. "What is it that they are doing?"
In other words, if the Senate Finance Committee comes forward with a bill, then you'll likely see the House push something through before recessing. "They could come out with something in the next 24 hours," Pelosi told the reporters. "I'd be a little more concerned if it were next Wednesday and they still hadn't shown anything, but they have another week."
But that's all assuming congressional leaders don't decide to work well into August--and it's still somewhat unclear how likely that is.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
I am so proud of my congresswoman (no Israel votes please)
July 23, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
AP is saying that Reid has said no vote before the fall.
And of course, it's being described as a "blow to Obama".
Excellent work, Harry. As usual.
July 23, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
But at least we'll have that lovely bipartisanship!!!
The Nevada Democrat says the decision to delay a vote was made Wednesday night in the hopes of getting a final bipartisan bill
Harry and Max? Thanks so much for screwing over the American public in your quest for bipartisanship. It's never going to happen. But you keep being Charlie Brown, and the Republicans will keep being Lucy, and everyone will be hunky dory.
July 23, 2009 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure who's the Charlie Brown and who's the Lucy.
Career total contributions from businesses in the health sector:
Harry Reid: $1,574,351
Max Baucus: $1,739,049
(Not including lobbyist money.)
July 23, 2009 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep. Par for the course. Thanks, Harry.
In that regard, Steve Benen's comments from July 19 are spot on.
He begins by noting how Clinton's failed health reform went down in 1993-94, where Bill Kristol (yeah, that Bill Kristol) advised Republicans to do whatever they could to kill the proposal -- not because it was bad policy, but because "passage would help the Democratic Party for years to come". They succeeded. And "centrist" Democrats helped them. Benen quotes Yglesias: "The result of that failure was not only substantively bad, but politically disastrous for Democrats."
Sixteen years later, Benen notes, the same game is playing out. But, Benen wonders, do the Liebermans, Baucuses, Conrads, Blue Dogs, and Reids simply not remember 1994? Or did they actually prefer that outcome?
Remember that, next time someone pops up around here praising "centrist" Dems, and claiming that they're actually good for the party. Remember where these guys' campaign contributions come from. Remember that, next time someone blames Democratic losses on the party's left flank.
July 23, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink