During a press conference yesterday, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Democratic negotiators are reconciling final differences in House and Senate health bills that passed last year. The White House plans to post the proposals online early next week (perhaps on Monday February 22), ahead of the February 25 summit announced earlier this month.
In other news reports filed by the Associated Press this week, another White House official, who spoke anonymously, made comments suggesting the White House and Congress' Democratic leaders could fall back to the reconciliation process to enact comprehensive health reform if Republican leaders don't support compromises that could draw enough lawmakers from both parties to create a bipartisan majority. According to those reports, the goal of this week's negotiations is to develop a reconciled measure that Senate Democrats can pass, under rules barring Republican filibusters, unless Republicans offer acceptable changes at next week's summit.
The House does not have enough votes to pass the Senate-passed reform bill, HR 3590, without changes to the measure's financing proposals. Under the parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation, the House would pass the Senate bill and the Senate would immediately amend the measure through a "side car" reconciliation bill. The contents of such a proposal have been tightly held and there is no clarity but it is expected to modify the Senate Bill just enough to garner the necessary votes on the House side.
While broader reform continues to swirl -- we have a March 1 deadline to prevent a dramatic 21% cut in Medicare Physician Reimbursement due to SGR (known as the "Doc Fix") that still has not been addressed. This issue will remain central to next week's activities.
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