Durbin: Health care could pass in 'matter of weeks'

By Mary Wisniewski
Chicago Sun Times

Speaking at the opening of a community health center in the West Side Austin neighborhood Saturday, U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) said it’s “unfortunate” that senate Republicans won’t join Democratic efforts to pass a health care bill, but that the Democrats are ready to go it alone.

“I think they’re going to oppose our efforts,” said Durbin. “Now we have to get the job done.”

Durbin wouldn’t venture to predict predict when the bill will pass, but said he believed it will be “a matter of weeks, not months.”

Durbin noted that the process of “reconciliation” could be used as a way to improve a senate bill already passed.

The Democrats no longer have a 60-vote filibuster-proof roll call, but could pass a health bill with a 51-vote majority using reconciliation — a tactic that U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) asked President Obama and Democratic leaders during the all-day health care summit Thursday to renounce.

“I think people understand it’s been used over 21 times, and more than half those times by Republicans themselves,” Durbin said. “It’s been done before. It’s not something extraordinary.”

Durbin called “horrible” the decision of Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) to filibuster to hold up an extension of unemployment benefits, which expire Sunday. Bunning says he won’t support the extension because it isn’t paid for.

“This isn’t fair,” Durbin said. “If this senator wants to have a debate or a fight over an issue, he really shouldn’t victimize these people who are out of work.”

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