"Two Nights Before Christmas: Late Vote On Health Reform Looms "

[Clio the Leo]

Two Nights Before Christmas: Late Vote On Health Reform Looms

By Ramsey Baghdadi

Democrats aim to begin conference with the House on December 26.


The rumor that a vote on the Senate health reform bill will be scheduled for the early morning hours of Dec. 23 – some say at 2am – is one that no one on Capitol Hill denies in private.

After the late night vote, with Democrats expecting the bill to receive at least the 60 votes required to pass that chamber, House and Senate staff are preparing for a two-week conference process that is slated to begin on Dec. 26.

Hill staffers expect to work out a compromise on five or six major issues in conference, including the public option, abortion language that would restrict the use of federal dollars to fund the procedures, and Medicaid expansions among others.

A final vote on the House/Senate conference bill is forecast for mid-to-late January in time for the State of the Union speech by the President, according to the rumor.

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If the rumor of a late-night Senate vote holds true, it would mirror the strategy used by Republicans on the Medicare Modernization Act, which included the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit.

Democrats, with one of the rare exceptions being Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., were locked out of the final stages of negotiations over the MMA.

The vote in the House took place in the early hours of the morning, a fact Democrats won’t soon forget.

“When the vote was called at almost 3 a.m., voting Democrats stood unanimously with 22 Republicans in opposing the legislation,” current House Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter, D-NY, wrote in a 2006 New England Journal of Medicine piece. “Had the vote been gaveled down in the customary 15 minutes, the bill would not have passed. So the Republican leadership held the vote open for a record three hours while attempting to change the outcome.... Finding itself with a narrow lead at 5:53 a.m., the Republican leadership immediately brought the vote to a close.”

Democrats appear ready to implement the same strategy for their health reform bill.

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