Status of Health Care Reform Uncertain
January 18, 2010
After losing their supermajority in the Senate, congressional Democratic leaders are still insistent on passing health care reform legislation but the details are uncertain.
Two options are being discussed by Democrats. Democrats could start over with a new, scaled-down bill focused on incremental insurance reforms in hopes of garnering Republican support.
An alternative would be to pursue budget reconciliation that would pass significant pieces of the health care reform legislation with a simple majority vote in the Senate. Reconciliation could also be used to amend the Senate’s health care bill and perhaps make it palatable to a majority in the House. That is the direction most democratic Senators would like to take.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared last week that the House did not have the votes to pass the Senate bill as is. Either path could take months
