No timetable for health care reform, senator said

— BENTON COUNTY - U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln doesn’t expect the U.S. Senate Finance Committee to be working on health-care legislation up until Thanksgiving, but neither is there a timetable for the committee to finish its work on the bill, said Lincoln, DArk.

“Some people are thinking we’re going to be done on Friday. I’m not so sure about that. But we’ll keep pushing; we’ll certainly keep plugging along. … My hope is we’ll get to where we need to be and get a good bill, and I think you’ll see that happen over the course of the next three or four days,” Lincoln said Wednesday.

While doing nothing about heath-care reform is not an option, doing the wrong thing has to be avoided, too, she said.

“We have to take the time to make sure we get it right. Artificial deadlines are not helpful. This is just too important an issue todo otherwise,” Lincoln said.

During the Senate’s August recess, she heard from many Arkansans concerned that senators might not be as attentive to the details of the health-care legislation as they should be. She will look very carefully at any proposal out of the committee, the senator pledged.

“The folks in Arkansas can be certain that I will not vote for a proposal ... to review the healthcare reform proposal before its final passage out of the Senate Finance Committee, Lincoln said.

The amendment would have required that both the legislative language and an analysis of the bill’s budget impact be on the committee’s Web site for three days before the bill could be voted out of the committee, she said.

The amendment was not approved, Lincoln said.

“I wish it would have passed,” she said.

News, Pages 21 on 10/07/2009