On Sunday Roll Call had an important heads-up about the next steps in the Senate health care debate. While we wait for Harry Reid to perfect his Hamlet imitation, it's worth a read.

McConnell told reporters last week... "Once it’s on the floor, what is a reasonable amount of time to spend in the United States Senate debating one of the most important issues we could ever have before us?" McConnell said Republicans are going to "insist" on several weeks of debate and argued an issue like health care — equivalent to 20 percent of the national economy — deserves more than the four weeks accorded the most recent farm bill and at least as much time as the seven weeks given the No Child Left Behind education reform effort and the eight weeks given to an energy bill earlier this decade.

At least eight weeks of debate. How do they plan to accomplish this?

Doing that is going to take some time, and the process of amending bills during a floor debate — which can include demanding a 60-vote threshold for all amendments — could provide the minority ample opportunity to slow things down. Republicans could also benefit from some built-in delays, including the fact that Democratic leaders have said they’d like to wait for a Congressional Budget Office cost estimate on the bill before beginning debate.

At least eight weeks: 56 days. In that time we may expect six thousand eight hundred seventy-two Americans to die from their stalling tactics.

The Senate HELP Committee passed its version of health care reform on July 15th. Baucus' Gang of Six negotiations bought Sen. Snowe's vote on October 14th. That's 91 days, and in that time eleven thousand one hundred sixty-seven Americans died from lack of health insurance.

Sen. Harry Reid is insisting that the CBO score his merged health care bill before he submits it to floor debate, where Mitch McConnell is planning on those eight weeks or more of debate. The clock started ticking on October 15th, after Baucus' bill passed. So far seven hundred thirty-six Americans have died while Harry Reid has been "leaning toward talking about the public option," as he put it today. How many more will die while he leans?

Are Republicans (and Democrats) so insensitive as to not care about all these thousands of dead Americans while they dither and argue and collect their health insurance bribes? Perhaps not. Maybe they just don't understand.

[DAVID] GREGORY: You know, it's interesting, Senator Kyl, in that vein, in terms of this kind of moral imperative, you and other Republicans have said this healthcare reform should be opposed, and one of the major reasons you cite is how much money it costs, how much it could potentially add to the deficit, although the president says it'll be deficit-neutral. And yet when you talk about the war in Afghanistan and the commanders should have more of their troops, I've never heard you say that that should be deficit-neutral, that war costs should somehow not break the bank. Why is that disparity there? SEN. KYL: David, no country can afford to scrimp and save or try to win a war on the cheap. The president himself has said that the war in Afghanistan against these terrorists who killed over 3,000 American on September 11, 2001, is a war of necessity. You have to win it. And Americans throughout our history have sacrificed when war has called for us to do that. GREGORY: And is it a, is it a necessity to tackle the fact that there are more and more Americans who die because they don't have access to health insurance? SEN. KYL: I'm not sure that it's a fact that more and more people die because they don't have health insurance; but because they don't have health insurance, the care is not delivered in the best and most efficient way.

Maybe Sen. Kyl is right. Maybe all Americans must sacrifice to declare war on those terrorists who killed over [sic] 3,000 Americans. Maybe all Americans ought to declare war on those terrorists who are killing that many every three and a half weeks by inaction and delay rather than action.

Tick tick tick, ladies and gentlemen. The Butcher's Bill is rising, every twelve minutes.