Politicos seem to need deadlines, and so the leader of the state Assembly set a new one today: a vote on health care reform by November 26.

In his remarks at today’s hearing on Governor Schwarzenegger’s health care proposal, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez called for a deal on the issue by Thanksgiving. Later, his advisers clarified that a vote must come by the Monday after the holiday… or else risk missing the chance to get a health care financing initiative on the ballot in November 2008.

The hearing, which goes on at this hour, is the first real policy discussion of Schwarzenegger’s proposal — a proposal that existed largely as only a framework for months and was recently written as actual legislation.

It’s also a proposal that has been modified over time, both on who’s covered and who pays. But Nunez and several other Democratic lawmakers in today’s hearing are suggesting it’s still not close enough to a plan they can accept. Committee members grilled the governor’s health and human services secretary Kim Belshe about a number of issues — most notably criticizing the lack of specifics in the bill about what specific health care services would, and wouldn’t, be covered in the kind of catastrophic plan that Schwarzenegger says everyone should be required to have at a minimum.

Meantime, the urgency is again due to the financing scheme that has developed… a financing scheme that includes everything from a new fee on businesses and hospitals to privatization of the state lottery… and one that would have to approved by voters. If that’s to happen anytime soon, time is running out.

Much more on the policy substance of today’s hearing tomorrow morning on The California Report.