Word: reided
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Still struggling to line up the 60 votes that are needed to overcome a potential filibuster of health care reform, Senate majority leader Harry Reid sent a strong signal on Tuesday that President Obama is unlikely to be signing his top domestic priority into law this year, as Democrats had hoped. "We're not going to be bound by timelines," Reid told reporters as he emerged from a weekly lunch with Democratic Senators. He vowed to pass a bill "as expeditiously as we can," which is another way of saying it will probably be slow going over the weeks...
...Reid's comments were such a departure from the official line that, as soon as reports of them began appearing, his office issued a statement attempting to take the edge off of them. "Our goals remain unchanged. We want to get health insurance reform done this year, and we have unprecedented momentum to achieve that," Reid spokesman Jim Manley said. "There is no reason why we can't have a transparent and thorough debate in the Senate and still send a bill to the President by Christmas...
...Reid's decision to include a public option in the bill that he takes to the floor has also complicated matters. While applauded by the party's liberal base, the idea of adding a government-run alternative plan to the choices for covering the uninsured faces resistance from some of the Senate's more conservative Democrats as well as Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican who has shown any serious interest in supporting the bill. And to get anything over the hurdle of a threatened GOP filibuster, Reid will need to hold together his entire caucus of 60 Democrats...
There are also more practical hurdles, including the fact that Reid has not yet received an official analysis of his legislation from the Congressional Budget Office, and may not until late next week. Senators will not want to begin debating the legislation until they have the CBO's projection of how much it will cost and how it will affect the deficit. Between next week's Veteran's Day recess and the subsequent Thanksgiving break, that means it may well be December before the bill even gets to the Senate floor...
...Still, Reid is pushing ahead with Schumer's plan, and it will be many weeks' worth of amendments before it is known if Democrats have the votes to pass it. Even if it fails, says Senator Nelson, Schumer will have no problem adapting to the political reality. "Chuck is the most pragmatic man I've ever met," Nelson says with a laugh. Yet it's clear that Schumer is a long way off from calling his public option a lost cause just...