It's now September, and that must be a reason for Democrats in the Congress to breathe a sigh of relief. But when it comes to health reform, we seem to be on hold until lawmakers are back at work next week.
If you look back at the last two plus weeks, the Obama Administration hasn't moved the ball much on health care.
The week of the 17th was spent almost entirely in a battle over whether the White House was backing off a public health insurance option in a reform bill.
Not a good PR week.
The week of the 24th, the First Family was on vacation in Martha's Vineyard. There wasn't much action on health care.
Now this week, the President is basically "working from home," and not doing much in public, as he held some meetings in the morning and played golf in the afternoon on Monday.
"I assume he'll continue to make calls throughout the week, judging and assessing where we are," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who wasn't too pleased when reporters asked about his boss' choice of golf instead of policy.
"I don't -- I think that just because the President just might be doing something else doesn't mean he's not focused on health care reform," said Gibbs.
So, all I can deduce is that the White House is just going to wait until the Congress comes back into session on September 8, and then roll the dice on health care.
Until then, I'm not expecting anything big, unless the Congressional Budget Office wants to weigh in with an overall cost estimate of the health care bill - then I'll be happy to do some work.
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