U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., believes the Senate will vote on its sweeping health care bill before Christmas. He expects to launch the health care debate in the Senate next week, but Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., cautioned that a vote will not come until they know they have the 60 votes necessary to invoke cloture and move onto the bill. Durbin says it is unlikely a House-Senate conference could finish work in time for Congress to send a final measure to President Obama this year.
The Veterans Day recess is scheduled to begin Wednesday with lawmakers returning to Washington next week. Then ten days later it's the Thanksgiving Day recess. Durbin says they're hoping the bill will be ready by then for all members to carefully review and then, when Congress returns, they can meet together and work out differences.
Former President Bill Clinton was in Washington Tuesday to address the Democrats at their weekly party luncheon. Mr. Clinton offered 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
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