Senate Leaders Aim To Start Health Care Debate Next Week

As former President Bill Clinton sought to shore up the resolve of Senate Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid insisted Tuesday that the Senate can still vote on its sweeping health care bill before Christmas.

Clinton was addressing the Democrats at their weekly party luncheon, offering a candid assessment of the lessons learned from his own administration's failure to get a health care overhaul through Congress in 1993 and 1994. Democrats lost control of Congress to Republicans in the November 1994 elections.

Reid, D-Nev., said he expects to launch the Senate's health care debate next week, but Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., cautioned that Democratic leaders will not schedule a vote until they know they have the 60 votes necessary to invoke cloture and move onto the bill.

"I want to make sure we have 60 votes committed before we go to the floor, and that's what we're working on," Durbin said.

Reid indicated that a vote on final passage could occur before Christmas, but Durbin acknowledged that it is unlikely a House-Senate conference could finish work in time for Congress to send a final measure to President Obama this year, as the White House had hoped and Democrats had initially promised.

"Our goal is to get it out of the Senate this year," Durbin said.

If Democrats can muster the 60 votes needed to proceed to a heath care bill next week, Durbin said senators would have a week-long Thanksgiving break to digest the measure before the real nuts-and-bolts work on amendments begins, most likely the first week of December.

"We do have a Thanksgiving recess, and we're hoping that the bill will be ready for all members to carefully review it during that time, and then, when we return, that we can meet together and work out our differences," Durbin said.

But first, Reid needs a final "score" from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which it not expected until late this week at best.

"As soon as they can give us the bill, with a score, we're ready to roll," Durbin said.