Pat Dollard

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Politico:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that there is no firm commitment for Democrats to rush a health care bill through Congress this year.

“First of all, we’re not going to rush into anything,” he said. “We’re going to wait until the new senator arrives until we do anything more on health care.”

In a press conference the day after Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown shattered the Democratic supermajority in the Senate, Reid said he’d spoken with President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a number of issues, including the fate of the health care bill.

Reid had earlier ruled out reconciliation, but now he’s leaving the door open to using the controversial, filibuster-busting procedural move.

“I’ve said that reconciliation is one of the things we need to look at,” a somber Reid said. “No decision has been made.”

Reid’s statement today was a complete reversal from what he said just before Thanksgiving:

“I’m not using reconciliation,” he said flatly at the time.

Reid also said Democrats inherited a lot of problems a year ago when Obama was inaugurated and he believes they are still recovering.

“We made difficult decisions and took critical steps,” he said. “We don’t pretend for a minute that our work was done.”

Reid also said the election doesn’t change the Senate agenda that much — it just changes the math behind the votes.

“The election in Massachusetts changes the math in the Senate,” he said. “It’s easy math. It’s simple math. But it doesn’t change the fact that people are hurting. That election doesn’t change one thing in that regard. It doesn’t change our conviction to help those people.”