MALVEAUX: The Senate is closer than expected now to its Christmas Eve vote on health care reform. In just the past couple of hours, that vote was moved up about 12 hours, to 8:00 a.m. on Thursday.

Joining me from Capitol Hill is Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who says if this bill passes, there will be a day of accounting.

Senator, thank you for joining us in THE SITUATION ROOM. I had a chance to talk to Senator Dick Durbin in the hour before. I know you guys struck a deal to vote for this earlier, as opposed to later, to allow families to get home for the holiday season.

Were you a part of that?

What did -- how did that take place?

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: Well, there were extensive conversations about how do we keep the time that we think we need in order to expose the deficiencies of this bill and, of course, the sweetheart deals that -- that produced it, but yet, you know, show respect for people and their families, let them get home at least in time for Christmas Eve.

And so I think it was a bipartisan agreement that resulted in this vote on -- on Thursday morning.

But I want to emphasize that this does not mean passage of this bill or signature by the president in its current form is inevitable. There's a lot of work that remains reconciling with the House. And, frankly, what my preference would, as you probably know, would be to stop this bill and start over and do some things that make sense, rather than make this massive government takeover of health care.

MALVEAUX: But what can do, as a Republican, right now besides stand in the way of this moving forward?

Is there anything you can do?

CORNYN: Well, it's not easy, because we only have 40 Republicans and there's 60 Democrats. So anything 60 Democrats decide to do, then they can pretty much run the place, as they can in the House under the majority leadership they have there.

But what we've tried to do is talk about what's in the bill and the things that I know my constituents are concerned about, things like a half trillion dollars in Medicare cuts, not to shore up Medicare, but to create another entitlement program; the tax increases on small businesses and middle class during a recession, when unemployment is about 10 percent; and then the fact that one of the consequences of the mandates in this bill -- central, controlled by the government of what kind of policies are permissible and which ones are not. Premiums actually are going to go up for many people...

MALVEAUX: But this...

CORNYN: ...so this is not really the kind of reform I thought we were all about.

MALVEAUX: But this is far from the -- from what it looked like before, when it first started. You don't have any public option in this bill. You don't have an expansion of Medicare. There are limits on abortion.

Is there nothing that you find in this bill that you can support? CORNYN: No. There are some elements of it; certainly, some of the wellness and prevention provisions and some of the delivery system reforms. There are some good things about the bill. But from a financial standpoint, it's a budget buster. And it's not the kind of thing we ought to be doing.

I -- I think that there are step by step approaches that would make more sense. You've heard a lot about cross state -- interstate purchase of insurance, letting people control what they want to buy and where they buy it, something that fits their needs; parity of tax treatment for employer-provided insurance and then that which you might buy if you're not covered by an employer policy; things like that which would help bring the costs down, which this bill does not do.

MALVEAUX: Those pre-existing conditions...

CORNYN: Those would be better.

MALVEAUX: ...the -- the reforms that the insurance companies will be subjected to, being able to -- to -- to offer insurance and not deny those with pre-existing health conditions, isn't that worth it enough to -- to put your support behind this...

CORNYN: Oh, there's...

MALVEAUX: ...that this would dramatically change the lives of so many Americans right away?

CORNYN: Absolutely. There's bipartisan support for eliminating the preexisting conditions exclusion. One of the ways we can do that is by making insurance not necessarily tying you down to an employer, to be able to buy insurance that you can afford.

But, yes, I'm -- that has bipartisan support. But this bill does a lot, lot more and that's why it costs about $2.5 trillion over a 10 year full implementation period. This is a massive government takeover of health care. And I think reducing individual choice and empowering the government and unelected, unaccountable advisory boards who are going to decide what kind of diagnostic tests, what kind of treatment that the government is going to pay for and, thus, that you may be denied.

MALVEAUX: All right. Senator, we're going to have to leave it there.

But thank you for joining us. And, obviously, have a good holiday with your family.

I'm glad that Congress could at least work that deal out.

CORNYN: Thanks, Suzanne.