Is the current bill back to Baucus? (In all the excitement I lost count myself...)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

With all the back and forth and daily break-throughs, has the ambitious Reid combination of the Finance and HELP bills been whittled back to where it's almost the same as the Baucus (Finance) bill?

(As Dirty Harry said, "In all the excitement I lost count myself...")

[rockymountaindem]

1. And there like fools we kept consoling ourselves that it was only one bill among six

[lapfog_1]

2. No, the current bill is based on the one that Reid introduced

now referred to as the manager's bill (I'm not sure why).

The latest amendment (to satisfy Nelson anti-abortion crap) is here:

http://democrats.senate.gov/reform/managers-amendment.pdf

This bill has everything Joe Lieberman wanted, everything that Nelson wanted (including a special provision for more Medicaid money for Nebraska), and the Landrieux payoff.

This is the bill that will be voted on by Christmas (theoretically) and will get 60 votes for cloture. Then, if if passes by 50 to 50 margin, it goes to conference.

Despite the hopes of some here, Nelson has said (and I think he speaks for Lieberman too) that the bill that comes out of conference cannot be substantially different than this bill. No PO, no expansion of Medicare, abortion language to remain as is, etc, etc. I'm sure that there is some room to modify things around the edges, remains to be seen just how much.

After that, the bill comes out of conference as frozen (no more debate, no amendments can be offered), in the House it needs a simple majority vote, in the Senate it must again get 60 votes to avoid filibuster, and, finally, another 50-50 vote to pass (always assuming that Biden would vote in favor). After that, we are off to a signing ceremony, probably in the East Room. And then many people here will rejoice, and many others will weep.

We will have till Tuesday, November 2, 2010, now less 10 and 1/2 months away, to see what the true cost of this bill really is.