Having just survived a truly impressive tantrum this morning from one of my sons who was deeply committed to going to school this morning without shoes, I’m feeling primed for what promises to be a raucous final stage of the health reform debate.
As far as we know, Congress is still proceeding with the plan of the House passing the Senate health reform bill (with many members kicking and screaming as vigorously as my son this morning), then the House and the Senate passing a smaller reconciliation package designed to improve the Senate bill and make it more palatable to House members. I just hope we get through the week without anyone throwing shoes at an authority figure (at home or in Congress).
This week, RollCall reports that by the end of the week we may see the actual legislative language of the reconciliation bill and a CBO score, allowing us to fill in final details of what health reform might look like. The White House continues to press for a final vote in mid-to-late March.
In the meantime, everyone is digging deeper on the arcane rules of budget reconciliation. Our friends at CBPP have shared the gory details before, but the question of the day seems to be whether using reconciliation actually allows health reform proponents to proceed with a straight up-or-down vote. The issue has flared up because there is a 20-hour limit on debate over a reconciliation bill, but the rules may allow opponents of health reform to offer an endless series of amendments OUTSIDE of the 20 hours of debate. If they take this route, Senate leaders will need to decide whether to call in Vice President Biden to declare the string of amendments “dilatory” and to dismiss them.
Also, this week we’ll be tracking where things are heading with a 6-month extension of Medicaid fiscal relief, which has enormous implications for the capacity of states to continue to sustain and strengthen their gains for kids and families. The Medicaid fiscal relief is included in a jobs bill making its way through the Senate right now. To make things confusing, the term “jobs bill” has been used to describe three separate bills currently in motion: 1) a $17.6 billion package that mostly creates a tax credit for companies that hire unemployed people; 2) a short-term extension of unemployment insurance, COBRA and a few other items through end of March/early April (this is the one that Senator Bunning single-handedly held up on the Senate floor last week); and 3) a much bigger extension through December 31, 2010 of unemployment insurance, COBRA, and a few other items.
It is this THIRD so-called “jobs bill” that includes a 6-month extension of Medicaid fiscal relief from December 31, 2010 through June 30, 2011. Congress Daily reports that the jobs bill (the third one) will be up on the Senate floor this week, and then it will need to go to the House for action. The House already has twice passed an extension of Medicaid fiscal relief in other bills and President Obama supports it, which means the prospects for passage are bright if it makes it through the Senate.