WASHINGTON (CNN) – After the Senate Finance Committee votes Tuesday on its overhaul bill, the focus of the long-simmering health care debate will shift to the work led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who must merge the conservative-leaning Finance bill with a more liberally-drawn bill approved by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
The goal is to emerge with a single bill that can win at least 60 votes in the Senate, meet President Obama's ambitious promise to dramatically change the way health care is paid for and provided, and cost no more than $900 billion over the next ten years.
The work could take one to two weeks to complete, according to Senate aides. It will take place behind closed-doors in Reid's ornate Capitol suite, just off the Senate floor, which has views of the Mall. Joining Reid, D-Nevada, in the decision-making will be: Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, the Finance Committee Chairman; Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the senior Democrats on the health committee; and Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff.
Other key players are likely to weigh in, most notably Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a centrist long-considered the Democrats' best hope for getting GOP support.
The primary difference between the finance committee bill and the health committee bill involves the question of a government-run insurance company - known as the public option. The health committee bill provides for a robust public option designed to compete head-on with insurance companies and force them to reign in costs and reform the way they do business. The finance committee ditched the public option in favor of non-government-run health care co-ops, a nod to conservative Democrats and Republicans who fear a government takeover of the health care system.
Other key differences include whether employers should be forced to provide health insurance to their employees; and how generous government subsides should be to assist low and middle-income people pay for health insurance.
In order to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster, Reid must be mindful of a large block of centrist Democrats who are wary of a radical make-over of health care. If Reid loses their support he might be forced to pass a bill using a controversial procedure called reconciliation. It would allow Democrats to pass the bill with just 50 votes instead of 60. But Republicans have promised a "minor revolution," in the words of Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, if Democrats resort to that rarely-used tactic.
Absent from the talks will be Republican leaders, who have long-criticized the bill for its size and scope. One senior Republican leadership aide recently quipped that during the talks she would be in her office with her feet on her desk because she sure wasn't going to be invited in to offer suggestions.
From CNN Politics
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The headline says: Health care: What happens next?
They hem and haw around, call each other names for a while and in the end figure out a way to enrich their buddies while trying to make their constituents (on both sides of the aisle) feel like their guy fought hard for them and pulled off the best he could while battling the vicious opponents. If successful, they get re-elected (because their constituents know that their guy is good, it's the rest of Congress that sucks) and move on to the next item that will enrich their buddies, prolong the quibbling between constituencies and in the end, propagate the circle.
The sad part is, most folks will fall for this, over and over and over and over and over.....
The Democrats have been given the power to act by the people. Lets start using some of this political capital and pass health care reform.
With or without the support of the party of "no"!!
God help us if those 5 idiots are drafting/merging a health care bill.
Nothing will happen, nothing will pass both chambers, and no bill will be signed into law beofre next years elections. Want to know why? Because NEITHER party wants a Health Care reform bill to pass. Want to know why neither party wants a bill to pass? Because both parties are taking in WAY TOO MUCH money in campaign contributions and neither party actually cares about helping American families. All both parties care about is bring in campaign contributions – VOTE LIBERTARIAN !!!!!
Ths makes sense - the leader of the Democrats meeting with the leader of the Republicans.
This health care bill will make insurance go up for all, especially since they lowered the penalty for not having it. I read an article that Congress anticipates that coverage for a family of 4 will cost 15k a year. Right now I pay for a family of 4, 13k. Where's my lowered costs? It's all bull, we need a brand new congress. It's time to get rid of all the dead weight.
Start with that crook Rangel, then mama Pelosi, Chris Dodd and let's not forget Barney Frank. These 4 are all self serving crooks.
How will this bill be paid for without raising taxes on the middle class, raising insurance premiums, or other fees and levys. Relying and trusting on savings that have been promised by stopping corruption and fraud is a cause for a drug test of the believers. This is the government folks! No government/public option in the final bill unless it ia an HMO with an annual fee, deductables, and co-pays just like the Military who do not have military hospitals available to them have to deal with. If it is good enough for the armed forces and their families, it is good enough for civilians.
We need a public option!!!!!!!! I do not want to give insurance companies more control.... That won't help control costs. Our state passed a law 15 years ago requiring all to get auto insurance, but did not mandate insurance companies to make it affordable. All it did was make it harder for the working class to make ends meet.
Please we need a public option.
I know what happens in 2010: Reid loses by a landslide, the Dems lose control of both the House and the Senate, Republicans take over and real change happens, and Obama officially becomes a lame duck (even though he has been for all intents and purposes since he took office).
The problem with the health care reform is that no matter how good or bad the plan is, the insurance WILL raise their rates. In fact, when was the last time anyone got a decrease in their health care insurance premiums, co-pays, or deductibles? Try NEVER!
No public option / No reform!! Please include PUBLIC OPTION
Insurance Industry will not insure Lupus MS Cancer............................
A Senator gets to seek SIX different doctors before she decides her medical care for cancer.......................
How many ordinary people get to seek special medical care???###@@@
The republicans are there to protect the insurance company so it's there job to block the public option. The only thing they are more concern about is the insurance companies going out of business. The most important thing to the democrates is to save a human life. PUBLIC OPTION!!
what on earth is the problem with the Senate – come on Olympia Snow the people have spoken – we need a robust health pubic option as President Obama spelled it out to join with the civilized democracies of the world and to take care of our some 48 million people who are without health care. And while we are moving forward we need free public education through college. For the U.S the 21st century demands a social democracy which rides along with our private corporate system. My grandchildren deserve no less.
This is nothing but yet another huge tax bill that the democrats are trying to stick to the American people.
Ya know, it would be nice if just once CNN noted that Republicans used that "controversial procedure called reconciliation" to pass Bush's tax cuts to the weathly during a time of war, which caused America's debt to balloon. Think you could maybe mention that to your readers/viewers? Thanks.
what do you have when the GOV controls the banks , the auto ind, the stock market , the doctors , the schools , school loans, the energy production ? YOU HAVE NOTHING, they have it all .
What happens next? Death panels and internment camps and euthanasia and fascism and socialism– if you get your news only from FOX "news", that is.
For the rest of us it's just more sit and wait.