Opinion
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No health bill till fall
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
07/23/09 5:54 PM EDT
Well, the verdict is in on Barack Obama’s press conference last night. Democratic congressional leaders are conceding that they won’t pass a health care bill in either house before they go into recess early in August. Here’s the story from Politico and here it is from The Hill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has explicitly conceded that the Senate won’t act. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while insisting still that there are enough votes to pass the bill on the floor, is saying that it’s not so important to pass it before the recess. She tried to suggest that she fearful that members will encounter negative reaction over the recess by saying, “I’m not afraid of August. It’s a month.”
This comes on the third consecutive day when House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman has cancelled markup sessions on the bill, presumably because he knows he doesn’t have the votes. We’ve got to assume too that the White House has been very much in on Waxman’s decision; White House congressional liaison Phil Schiliro, long a top Waxman aide, has been reported attending meetings on the Hill today. In my Examiner column yesterday, I noted that Thursday have been bad days for the Democrats’ health care efforts this month, with the 40 Blue Dogs sending their letter to Pelosi on July 9 and CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf’s testimony and Congressman Jared Polis’s letter on July 16. It looks like July 23 is another bad Thursday for the Dems.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has explicitly conceded that the Senate won’t act. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while insisting still that there are enough votes to pass the bill on the floor, is saying that it’s not so important to pass it before the recess. She tried to suggest that she fearful that members will encounter negative reaction over the recess by saying, “I’m not afraid of August. It’s a month.”
This comes on the third consecutive day when House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman has cancelled markup sessions on the bill, presumably because he knows he doesn’t have the votes. We’ve got to assume too that the White House has been very much in on Waxman’s decision; White House congressional liaison Phil Schiliro, long a top Waxman aide, has been reported attending meetings on the Hill today. In my Examiner column yesterday, I noted that Thursday have been bad days for the Democrats’ health care efforts this month, with the 40 Blue Dogs sending their letter to Pelosi on July 9 and CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf’s testimony and Congressman Jared Polis’s letter on July 16. It looks like July 23 is another bad Thursday for the Dems.
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