The Senate Finance Committee late last night finished amending the chairman’s mark. The amended bill will be sent to the CBO for analysis. It is assumed that by Tuesday the CBO will have a preliminary score of the bill. If bill scores as not adding to the deficit, the committee should vote on the piece of legislation.
The bill is expected to pass despite the fact that several Democratic members of the committee are unhappy with the shape of the legislation. Committee members have been lobbied by administration officials to keep the process moving forward.
The big question is whether Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe will vote for the bill. Snowe appears to be the only Republican senator who might possibly vote for health care reform. She could vote against the bill in committee, but eventually vote for the bill after it is amended on the floor. If she voted for the bill in committee it might give her greater sway in deciding on how the two Senate bills (FinCom and HELP) are merged. HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin does not see room at the table for Republicans when the bills are merged.
Once out of committee, the bill must be merged with the Senate HELP Committee bill. The HELP bill contains a public option, tougher regulations, and more generous subsidies. Majority Leader Harry Reid will be responsible for merging the two bills. It is up to Reid as to whether or not the bill that is brought to the floor contains a public option.
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If I had any money, I’d give it to Sen. Harkin. He seems to be one of the few who recognizes the Republicans aren’t gonna vote for anything, good or bad, and Snowe won’t vote for anything worth having.
Wow – from your linke, a quote from the Senator:
“No, this will be a proposal by the Democrats to bring a bill on the floor. And that’s what I have said before, that the people of this country — I keep saying — the people of this country pretty overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama last fall and to make changes,” he said. “The people of this country overwhelmingly elected Democrats to the House and Senate.”
“We should be proposing the changes to be made,” he added.
This is what they should all be saying, all the time!
I would love to see the bill fail to get out of committee.
What happens if this bill does not get 12 votes in committee?
Kagro et al have the parliamentary 4-1-1 for us
Then the HELP Bill will be the only Senate bill to go the floor, where conservadems, blue dogs, and Republicans will try to make its PO even weaker than it already is. In floor fights the Republicans can vote for various Amendments that would weaken the bill and create “a poison pill” situation where the progressives are in the place where they might be inclined to vote against it because it’s worse than nothing. In that case, some progressives might just go for it to please Rahm and Obama and also in hopes that the House can liberalize it again in the Conference committee.
tejana – Senator Harkin as you know is an old school Humphrey type progressive – and his record is pretty solid – my only proviso is he’s been around a long time, is a veteran sausage maker and knows it’s all about the deal
Why is this different then if Harry packages the two bills together first? It seems things would be better starting just from the HELP bill. No?
Thanks. This was really good stuff.
I agree it’s not different and it may be better if they just start from HELP. My worry in either case though is that Republicans, Conservadems, and blue dogs can pass Amendments over progressive objections and then the Republicans would vote against the final bill, leaving the progressives with the “responsibility” for either defeating “health care reform” or passing a “health care reform” that is no reform at all.
Everything in Congress is distorted by the filibuster. We really need to make getting rid of it a major issue.
So it seems the upshot of this http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/17/104746/414 is that the finance parts of the bill have to come from the finance committee. But these SUCK in the bill so what do we care. Better the senate only takes up the HELP bill and then merges in finance from the house in conference. My guess is that this means it can’t be done through reconciliation but that isn’t going to happen anyways so who cares.
I guess we’re one step closer to seeing what they’re actually going to do to us.
Lube up.
The public option ain’t dead yet ,there is hope still
Reid won’t bring a bill to the floor without a Max component. If the bill doesn’t get out of FinComm, I think the process will end. Our only hope is the merge when Reid sends it to the Budget Committee.
Chaired by Kent Conrad, one of the most virulent Public Option opponents in FinComm. Reid will need to tailor the merge to suit Conrad.
Remember FISA, when Reid send the worse bill to the floor, thus requiring 60 votes to amend and strip immunity? That’s the playbook here: bring a non-PO bill to the floor (or a pretend-PO bill) and require 60 votes for a strong(er) Public Option. Won’t happen.
“We’ll fix it in conference” being the order of the day.
Hope returns!
So how is it possible that one of the best Senators and the worst of the worst Senators come from the same state?
I’ll go out on a limb and say the final finance committee vote is going be 12-11 with Lincoln and Snowe voting against. The was the vote on the Cantwell amendment, which is really a microcosm of the whole health care reform question: Should the government have an administrative role in controlling costs?
It will be interesting to see what becomes of the Cantwell amendment as the process moves forward.