Also, could this be the fulfilment of William Kristol’s seemingly over-the-top prediction yesterday (coming sooner and in a different form than he expected) that if Doug Hoffman wins his Congressional race, 40 Democrats will march into Pelosi’s office on Wednesday morning telling her to pull the bill?

And how, finally, will the messiah handle the news?

Look at it this way. He’ll always have Berlin.

Top Dems: Obama Won’t Get Health Care Bill in 2009
Senior Congressional Democrats Now Say Reform Before End of Year is Highly Unlikely
By JONATHAN KARL

Senior Congressional Democrats told ABC News today it is highly unlikely that a health care reform bill will be completed this year, just a week after President Barack Obama declared he was “absolutely confident” he’ll be able to sign one by then.

“Getting this done by the by the end of the year is a no-go,” a senior Democratic leadership aide told ABC News. Two other key Congressional Democrats also told ABC News the same thing.

This may come as an unwelcome surprise for the White House, where officials from the president on down have repeatedly said the health care bill would be signed into law by the end of the year.

“I am absolutely confident that we are going to get health care done by the end of this year, and Nancy Pelosi is just as confident,” Obama said Oct. 27 at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi may still be confident—and her spokesman Brendan Daly said today, “We are going to get our part done”—but the reason for the delay can be found in the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has yet to release the bill he eventually plans to bring to the Senate floor. Reid is still waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to come up with an estimated cost of several possible variations of his bill before deciding which one to introduce in the Senate.

That cost estimate, Democrats tell ABC News, is not expected until next week.

Asked directly by ABC News, “Will you pass health care reform this year?” Reid pointedly did not answer “yes.”

Instead, he replied, “We are not going to be bound by any timetables,” adding, “We are going to do this as quickly as we can.”

The delay is causing some frustration among Reid’s fellow Democrats, but Reid said of his colleagues, “They want us to do this the right way, not the fast way.”

Health Care Reform Won’t Be Finished This Year, Democrats Tell ABC News

After Reid made his comments, his spokesman said the goal remains getting a health care bill passed by the end of the year.

“Our goals remain unchanged,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said. “We want to get health insurance reform done this year, and we have unprecedented momentum to achieve that.”

The White House has pushed hard to get a bill passed this year, getting it done before the beginning of the Congressional campaign season. But the delay in the Senate will almost certainly push the health care debate into 2010.

The White House has tried to avoid that because passing major legislation in a Congressional election year is considered more difficult.

The best hope, Congressional Democrats now say, is for Democrats to pass Senate and House versions of the health care bill by the end of the year, pushing off House-Senate negotiations for a final bill until January.

Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

Roger G. writes:

“HE’LL ALWAYS HAVE BERLIN”

Well done.

There is a movement, being spearheaded by Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, to have a large number of constituents gather on the steps of the Capitol on Thursday at noon, and then enter the Capitol and confront their representative on the subject of Obamacare. People are already booking buses and planes for the trip. The vote was originally scheduled for Friday. This announcement that they don’t expect to bring the bill to a vote before the end of the year may be a ruse to defuse the protest, after which they can change their minds and vote on the bill next week. I’d say there is a better than 50 percent chance that the leadership is lying.

I agree with you that it’s good to stay alert to the possibility of any ruse from these liars, but I have to say that to me this particular scenario of deception seems too extreme to be likely