Congress to White House: Cool It With The Deadlines

Looks like Pelosi et al are sick of being mocked every time they miss an Obamacare deadline:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to stop assigning deadlines to Congress for finishing the health care reform bill.

In a House-Senate leadership meeting on health care Tuesday, she essentially told Emanuel to "cool it," according to one Hill Democratic aide -- an account confirmed by a second aide.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman told reporters that lawmakers made it clear to Emanuel that "we don't feel that we want any deadline assigned to us."

"We want to pass the bill," Waxman said. "We don't feel we have to have any particular deadline."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has said that the president wants the House to pass the Senate health care bill by March 18, before he leaves for an overseas trip, and for the Senate to take up the reconciliation bill by Easter.

But those demands have been met with annoyance on the Hill, where Democrats have been unable to meet deadlines on health reform -- and mocked by Republicans in the process.