House and Senate Health Reform Efforts Appear to be Slowing

It now appears that neither the House or Senate will vote on health reform legislation until after the August congressional recess. The good news is this will allow time for review of current draft proposals and time to consider options for additional cost savings. What does this mean for health care reform? In reality this is back to the original schedule most anticipated with potential votes on health reform coming in the Fall. Given the pressures on the economy and concerns about how to pay for health care reform this should allow more options to identify cost savings to fund expanded coverage.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) suspended his committee's markup of the House bill earlier this week and has not scheduled its continuation. The House begins its recess Jul 31st.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) said this week he hopes to move legislation out of the committee before the recess, but the process for doing so seems all but impossible. The Senate recess is set to begin August 7th.

While the legislative process may be slowing, some form of health care reform does indeed seem very likely to pass this year even if reforms are more incremental. In a prime time press conference and a town hall meeting in Ohio this week, Obama indicated he was undeterred by Congress' failure to meet his August deadline for reform legislation, and insists reform will happen this year.