Democratic Leaders Finalizing Language of Health Reconciliation Bill

House and Senate Democratic leaders “are working to finalize the language of a health care reconciliation bill by the end of this week in order to tee up the measure for passage in both chambers before the Easter break,” Roll Call reports.

Several Democratic sources said the goal is to get a completed bill to the Congressional Budget Office for an official cost estimate by Friday, with a hope that CBO could score the bill within a week or so.

That would give Democrats time during the week of March 15 to vet the measure with the Senate Parliamentarian, who will be the final arbiter of whether the entire bill meets strict reconciliation rules that require all provisions to have a direct budgetary impact. Provisions that the Parliamentarian rules out of bounds can be stricken by a budget point of order, and 60 votes are needed to keep such language in the bill.

As a reminder, there will essentially be two health bills.  One is finished in the Senate, passed in December of last year, and will be left up to the House to pass without changes.

The second, discussed in the above article excerpt, is a smaller set of changes to the bigger bill.  It’s the one likely to be passed using the simple-majority maneuver of reconciliation.

(credit image – getty)