What's in a Deadline? For Health Care, Everything

By Major Garrett, Chad Pergram and Trish Turner

What's in a deadline?

Nothing and everything where health care is involved.

Nothing because deadlines have been slipping since last summer when the House missed its deadline to pass a bill by the end of July - setting up the memorable August of health care discontent.

But this time, the deadline of March 18 for House action on the Senate-passed health care bill could mean everything.

"This is a one-shot deal," said a senior White House official about the health care endgame. "And if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. I guarantee you, we will not be having this discussion in May."

When asked if the health care debate ends for good if the House can't move the Senate bill, the senior official said without hesitation: "Yes."

The stakes, in other words, could not be higher for President Obama's signature domestic policy initiative. It appears no exaggeration to say the fate of the bill, not to mention Obama's political standing and legislative clout until the mid-term elections, will be determined in the next two weeks.

This doesn't seem, then, the best time for a public feud over legislative timing.

But that's exactly what's playing out.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met privately late today with top House and Senate Democrats on policy and procedures for the final health care bill. But those discussions had to wait so lawmakers could unload about the White House insistence on a March 18 deadline for House action on the Senate bill.

"I was just in a meeting with Rahm Emanuel," Rep. Henry Waxman, California Democrat and key health care negotiator, told reporters after the 90-minute session. "He was certainly informed that we don't feel that we want any deadline assigned to us. We want to pass the bill. We want to make sure it's the way it should be. But we don't feel that we have to have any particular deadline."

When reporters asked if that message was "heard" by the White House, Waxman said: "Rahm said he would pass it on."

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-ND, told reporters: "I've said for years, any talk of deadlines is an absolute waste of time. Deadlines just don't work, because you have so much that is out of your control."

Earlier in the day, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer dismissed the March 18 deadline. "None of us has mentioned the 18th other than Mr. Gibbs," said Hoyer, referring to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "We are trying to do this as soon as possible."

When asked about a "disconnect" with Hoyer, Gibbs offered this at today's briefing:

"There seems to be a disconnect (but) this was information that I was given based on conversations that people had in this building with Capitol Hill."

Democrats said publicly what had already been conveyed privately. Numerous Democratic leadership sources tell Fox the White House was told over the weekend to back off all deadlines and give them room to navigate the political, policy and procedural obstacles in their path.

"Congressional Democrats have come to see such markers as more of a problem than a motivator, but the White House hasn't seemed to digest that," said one senior Democratic strategist with knowledge of the health care talks.

Said another top Democrat involved in the process: "The message to Rahm was clear and simple: Stop."

Will the White House stand down?

Probably not.

Why?

Because it doesn't see delay solving anything anymore.

"Does anyone on Capitol Hill expect the political environment to get better two weeks from now," a senior administration official asked.

Here's why the White House is so invested in March 18. House action by then would give the Senate a full week, starting March 22, to move a so-called "fixes" bill (incorporating Obama's changes to the Senate bill) through the chamber under reconciliation procedures requiring only a 51-vote majority.

Privately, Senate Republicans admit if the "fixes" bill comes to the Senate after the House passes the underling Senate bill, it can't stop reconciliation.

"We could take up a few days, spring a few amendments but I don't think we can stop it," said one GOP leadership source.

Obama is scheduled to leave Washington March 18 for a six-day trip to Guam, Indonesia and Australia. The White House doesn't believe Obama needs to be around to lobby Senate Democrats, only House Democrats. That means the president's face-to-face lobbying window expires March 17 (the White House promised more meetings on health care with lawmakers this week).

Congress is due to start a two-week Passover and Easter recess on March 27. No one in the White House believes prospects for passing health care -- either in the House or the Senate - will improve during a two-week recess where the public and opposition groups will have a chance to pounce. And it's unclear if lawmakers are eager to devote townhalls to more debate about health care -- not in the face of consistent polling that voters rate job-creation well above health care on the national priority list.

Asked if health care could be done by the Passover-Easter recess, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said only:

"That would be my hope."

But time is running out.

One of the biggest obstacles to meeting deadlines since the health care debate started has been the time consumed by cost projections tabulated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The budget office is due to report to Democratic leaders Wednesday preliminary estimates on pieces of the "fixes" bill. But that deadline-within-a-deadline could slip until Thursday, a Senate Democratic leadership aide told Fox.

Two Democratic leadership sources said CBO must produce a formal cost projection after receiving final legislative language on the "fixes" bill. No one knows how long that process will take, but most Democrats are assuming several days - possibly a week. After that, House Democratic leaders assume they will need at least two days, maybe more, to come up with a formal vote count before they can proceed to a the cliffhanger vote of the young Obama presidency.

"You know the rule," one House Democratic leadership source said, "When you have the votes, you vote. We aren't voting yet."

Conrad discussed the slow-motion process at the heart of CBO health care cost projections.

"It's an iterative process. They come back and give you initial scores, and then you see there's a gap or you see something needs to be addressed, or you see something new needs to go to them."

Pelosi, noting the difficulties in crafting "fixes" to the Senate bill, told reporters "We also have more questions. Hopefully we'll have CBO figures soon."

No one knows better how health care deadlines can slip than Sen. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana. He led closed-door, bipartisan compromise talks for weeks last year that yielded no compromise. When he finally produced a bill that garnered only one Republican vote he saw that vote, Olympia Snowe of Maine, rebel in protest over "arbitrary deadlines" to compete action on the Baucus-drafted bill.

"We all agreed, all of us in the room agreed we have to move as expeditiously as we can, but there are a lot of hoops, a lot of hurdles, a lot of matters we have to deal with," Baucus told reporters after the meeting with Emanuel broke up.

Speaking of Emanuel, the hard-edged Obama operative was stopped by reporters after the Capitol Hill meeting and was asked for his assessment.

"We're making progress," Emanuel said.

When informed that's exactly what Hoyer, the majority leader, had said moments before, Emanuel said simply.

"Well, at least we're consistent then."