Another deadline missed?

John Hanlon | March 18, 2010 8:00 AM

Although it has not been officially confirmed, the Hill newspaper recently reported that there are signs that health care may not get a vote this week, much to the disappointment of many on the left who wanted to get this bill passed soon.

TheHill article noted the following:

House Democratic leaders on Wednesday night said the long-awaited Congressional Budget Office score of the reconciliation bill will not come out until Thursday, forcing an acknowledgement that a Saturday healthcare vote is likely off the table.

This comes only a few days after the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that "this is the week" for the vote, according to the Washington Post. That announcement came a few days after it was announced that Obama would delay an overseas trip to work on health care reform. It is possible that this could still be the week for a health care vote in the House but it is looking less likely by the day. [# More #]

However, if the bill is not voted on this week, that would not be a major surprise because this White House has previously created plenty of health care deadlines that fell apart. CNN.com recently featured an article about many of the important Obama health care deadlines that have been missed over the past several months. (The article reminded me of the fact that Obama actually wanted health care bills in the House and Senate passed BEFORE the August recess.)

I'm glad that so many deadlines have been missed without a bill being passed because I do not support the health care legislation going through the Congress. However, the Obama administration seems to have a self-defeating proclivity towards setting major deadlines, then ignoring them when they pass and then setting new URGENT deadlines.

If the Obama administration spent some of their time working on bipartisan health care legislation that works rather than on creating deadlines that fall apart, they would likely have a health care bill passed by now...or if not now, they could have set a deadline for the end of this week, worked towards that goal with Republicans and Democrats alike and gotten it done.

Or, considering their track record, maybe not.