Tonight the Administration announced that the State of the Union address will occur on January 27. If a health reform bill is to pass by then it can only be done with the House passing the Senate’s bill. There is not time to wrap up negotiations, obtain a CBO score on a new bill, and complete all the cloture votes in the Senate necessary to pass a new bill. If that is indeed what the Administration thinks is going to happen then it is a strong signal that they expect Coakley to lose the Massachusetts special election tomorrow, which appears likely.
Or perhaps the Administration is resigning itself to the fact that health reform will slip past the State of the Union deadline. That begs a question: what’s the next natural deadline?
