Senate GOP: Parliamentarian Says Health Bill Must Become Law Before Fix

[Joanne98]

Health reform just hit a potential snag.

The Senate GOP leadership is confirming that the parliamentarian has informed them that the Senate bill must be passed into law before any reconciliation fix is passed — lessening the likelihood that such a fix will actually happen.

“The Senate Parliamentarian’s office has informed Senate Republicans that reconciliation instructions require the measure to make changes in law,” Don Stewart, a spokesman for Mitch McConnell, emails, confirming an anonymously sourced report in Roll Call.

If this bears out, it would effectively nix one route forward that House Dems had hoped would give them a guarantee of getting the bill fixed later. The hope had been that the House could pass the Senate bill and then get the reconciliation fix done before the whole package were signed into law — a route that would have increased the pressure on the Senate to do a fix.

Now, if the GOP Senate leadership is right, that may no longer be possible. To be clear, the Senate could pass a reconciliation fix after the Senate bill becomes law. But as Ryan Grim notes, there will now be much less pressure to do so.

This increases the possibility that the Senate bill without a fix will become the law of the land. It also means that with the fix in peril, some House Dems may be less likely to support the Senate bill.

Continued>>>
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/senate-republicans/senate-gop-leadership-parliamentarian-has-ruled-house-must-go-first/

[annabanana]

1. This doesn't sound "new" to me. I thought everyone knew that

the House had to pass the Senate bill before they could "fix" it in a rider

[Jennicut]

2. The House wanted to see if it didn't have to.

But it is not really a "snag" in the reform. Just an option that won't be used.

[alc]

4. it does mean there will be a bill signed into law even if the senate does nothing more

The senate could say "we promised reconciliation" and go after it full force.

Or they could say "we agreed to reconciliation but didn't mean on EVERYTHING you thought" so we'll fix a few easy things that are safe for our members.

Or they could simply declare victory since a health reform bill was passed and signed (and their bill at that), then move onto jobs, energy, or getting re-elected. Maybe blame republicans for making reconciliation necessary and too hard but leaving their house counterparts hanging with a vote on a bill they did not intent to see enacted.

With the way senators are treating the house's cap-and-trade bill from last spring (and other things), there is some current distrust by the house on what the senate will do. If the bill did not have to be signed until reconciliation was complete, the house only had to trust Obama to not sign it without the fixes he promises. Now they have to trust that Obama will sign the senate bill after they pass it, and it will be fixed in reconciliation and, Obama will sign that, and it will all be done soon enough that we won't still be talking about it in July/August, and at least some of the "pluses" will start to be visible before the election.

The "fixed in reconciliation" is not 1 thing. Different house groups have different fixes they want and each of them needs to be convinced that their fix will be done before voting for the senate bill. While Reid says he will push forward with reconciliation I don't think he's convinced anyone about specific fixes he's willing to push (see my second option above for what I think is the likely scenario)

[Jennicut]

5. The only other option is to have Biden overrule the Palimentarian.

But I don't see that happening.

[Vincardog]

3. This report is BS. The reconsciliation bill can be passed by both houses before either bill is

signed into law by the president. The only thing that has to happen is that Obama has to sign the bills in the correct order.

Chillacks