What's A Deadline Between Friends?

Looks like the Senate's just not going to be able to get to health care legislation before the end of the year.

Congress will miss President Obama's deadline to enact health care reform by the end of the year, a key Democratic senator said Tuesday.

Illinois' Dick Durbin, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate, said he hopes, at best, to pass the Senate's version of a health care bill by that time.

If the Senate manages to pass a bill, a congressional conference committee would need to merge the House and Senate proposals into a consensus version requiring final approval from each chamber before moving to Obama's desk to be signed into law.

Durbin's assessment came as former President Clinton made a rare visit to Capitol Hill to discuss the health care issue with Senate Democrats.

Clinton tried but ultimately failed to pass a health care overhaul in the early 1990s. The failure is considered one of the reasons for the GOP takeover of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections.

And of course that February deadline after that will be missed too, and then of course it will be too late because of the 2010 election season, and then...

And then no health care reform.

And then no Democratic majority. I was really hoping that Big Dog's speech would actually motivate Democrats not to lose in 2010, but considering their first order of business was to have Dick Durbin say "Yeah, we're missing the deadline" I'm guessing they completely ignored him and the lessons of 1994.