FOXNews.com

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Senate and House lawmakers are putting the brakes on the health care reform bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the first time Thursday said that the Senate will not vote on the legislation until after the August recess. He told reporters it's more important to get it right than to ram through an incomplete bill.

The decision means Congress will not meet President Obama's ambitious deadline for legislation -- the president wanted both chambers to pass out a bill by the August recess.

It's unclear whether the House will be able to move legislation to the floor by the break, but delays continue.

The only House committee left to vote on the package postponed a key session Thursday.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee had postponed indefinitely its markup of the health care bill Tuesday as fiscally conservative Democrats known as Blue Dogs raised concerns about cost and other issues. But while the chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said he wanted to reconvene Thursday afternoon, a senior House source told FOX News that's not going to happen.

At the same time, the chief Democratic vote-counter in the House said that lawmakers in his chamber should cancel or delay their August recess if there's no deal on health care reform by that time.

"It is much better to cancel or postpone our August break and get this done. That's the way I feel," House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said Thursday. "I think it will affect our standing with the American people if we don't do this."

While House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said this week he doesn't think it's necessary to work into the recess, Clyburn suggested time is of the essence.

"If everyone goes home, those regional disparities are not going to get worked out. They're going to get worked out here in a conference room in this building," he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not say whether the House should stay late, but said lawmakers are having a "strong conversation" about the schedule.

"I don't even know if we would have to stay any longer (than) our regularly scheduled departure," she said.

After saying there's "no question" the bill has enough votes to pass on the House floor, she stood by the remark Thursday and said she's "more confident than ever." But at the same time, she suggested the bill was not quite ready for prime-time.

"We will take the bill to the floor when it is ready, and when it is ready we will have the votes to pass it," she said.

Clyburn said he hasn't started "counting noses" on the House floor, but that he has a "sense" of where the vote would go. He did not elaborate.

Meanwhile, the Blue Dogs are starting to draw the ire of their more liberal colleagues.

House Democrats on Thursday fired back at their claims that the bill on the table is too costly.

"We must reject these spurious claims that this is something the country cannot afford," said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. "We are committed to seeing health care reform pass this month and signed by the president this year."

Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., said the so-called "public option," a government-run alternative to private insurance, is critical and must not be "eroded or negotiated away."

FOX News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

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