After weeks of saying they would attempt to pass by August a sweeping health care reform bill in committee if not in the full Senate, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., suggested those assertions were merely the figment of the wild imaginations of the congressional press corps.
Speaking before a packed room full of reporters, with a group of doctors as his backdrop, Reid told the media that it was responsible for the intense pressure to finish a bill by next week that some Republicans and Democrats say is hindering the creation of a bipartisan agreement.
“You folks have created a deadline, we haven’t, Reid said.
It’s true that Reid has always hedged a little when asked whether the Senate would be able to pass a health care bill before the summer recess. He often told reporters that he was not interested in setting firm deadlines, though Reid, his staff and other Democratic leaders also said repeatedly that their goal was to pass a bill by August. President Barack Obama contributed was also leaning on the Senate to get it done by August.
But Reid pulled the plug on that possibility last week, announcing there would be no vote until September at the earliest because he didn’t want to jam it through. But he said he expected at least to have in front of him a completed bill now being written by a bipartisan group of six Senators on the Fiance Committee. That bill, however, is nowhere near finished, according to Republican negotiators, and likely won’t be done by Aug. 7, when the recess bell rings.
“I’m still cautiously optimistic we can get something out of the Finance Committee before this work period ends,” Reid told reporters. “But that is a deadline you have created.
