Congressional Democrats are under increasing pressure to finish up health care reform, but they’ve had enough of the White House dictating deadlines to them. And at a bicameral leadership meeting this afternoon–attended by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other administration officials–they made that very clear.
“I was at a meeting with Rahm Emanuel and he was certainly informed that we don’t feel that we want any deadline assigned to us,” House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman told a few reporters outside of a Democratic caucus meeting this evening. “We want to pass the bill, we want to make sure it’s the way it should be, and soon as possible, but we don’t feel that we have to have any particular deadline.”
I asked Waxman how Emanuel reacted to the pushback?
“He said he would pass it on,” Waxman said with a smirk.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has pressed a March 18 deadline for the House to pass the Senate health care bill, but a number of Democratic leaders, including most recently Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, have insisted they’re adhering to no timeline.
Emerging from the bicameral meeting, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin described deadlines as “a blessing and a curse.”
If it wasn’t already clear to the Obama administration that the pressure was unwelcome, it is now.
