McCaskill: Healthcare Bill Come The New Year

Sen. Claire McCaskill predicted Thursday on MSNBC's Hardball that the U.S. Senate would produce a healthcare bill "come the New Year."

While that timing can be interpreted a few ways, McCaskill warned there is "no margin of error here and everyone's tired and tensions are high."

Missouri's junior Senator also seemed to temper the wishes of the more liberal wing of her party and hinted Missouri public opinion may not be with her on changes to the healthcare system.

"People need to remember. We are the governing party because we have diversity of opinion in our party. We're not pure. We have moderates and we have more progressives and the reason we're governing right now is because we defeated moderate Republicans with moderate Democrats and people need to be patient about that and realize that compromise is not evil," McCaskill said. "No one's going to be really happy here. That's the process of legislating. It's about compromise . . . As we work through the compromises in our caucus, the progressives understand that everybody's going to have to bend a little to get to that final product that we can get across the finish line for the American people."

Asked whether her state was behind her, McCaskill hedged: "There's a lot of misinformation out there Chris. People are angry and cynical, in many instances, for good reasons. And they believing some of the stuff they are hearing, that the sky's going to fall."

Adding: "In Missouri, it's a 50-50 state, so I'm kind of used to half the state being mad at me."

But Vowing: "We're going to pass this bill and the sky is not going to fall."
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ALSO: McCaskill said the legislation would ultimately "reverse the trend that is killing most families in this country and that is they're having to go in their pocket for more and more money, for healthcare every year . . . We're also going to bring some insurance companies to heel here," she said.