Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he wants the Senate to take up the plan as soon as possible…

“I mean I would love to talk about that in my State of the State…”

He’ll give that address the first week in January… But the Senate President Pro-Tem Don Perata has indicated a vote won’t happen this month.  He’s requested more analysis of the plan’s fiscal impact. His spokeswoman Alicia Trost says that’s because of the looming multi-billion dollar budget deficit. 

  “There’s not much flexibility in the budget, and we know that the health services and the medi-cal—they’ll be taking very deep cuts and we want to know exactly what those are before we start talking about expanding another health care service.”

The health care plan approved will cover all children and require everyone to have health insurance.  Voters must approve its funding which includes a new tobacco tax.