Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Tuesday Tidbits

The health care reform effort still remains a behind the scenes operation while the Speaker of the House and her leadership team continue in their efforts to whip up 216 House votes for the Senate bill plus the House managers' "side car" reconciliation bill. The House Budget Committee approved the use of budget reconciliation yesterday by a 21-16 vote. The next step is to go to the Rules Committee before which point  the manager's sidecar bill -- amendments to the Senate bill -- would be unveiled. Fox News is reporting that the Rules Committee plans to hold this meeting on Friday, March 18, which would allow a vote on Saturday.  There's no real deadline here other than the adjournment of the current Congress at the end of the year.

The Rules Committee may approve the so-called Slaughter solution (Rep. Louise Slaughter chairs the Rules Committee) which would deem the House to pass the Senate bill, rather than actually pass it. As this Politico page indicates, this maneuver has generated a lot of controversy. 

There are just so many things we don't know yet.  The Hill reports that "As of late Tuesday afternoon, Congressional leaders were still waiting for the final numbers from the Congressional Budget Office on pending health care legislation."  It's unlikely we'll see the managers' sidecar bill until any CBO scoring issues are worked out. 

Meanwhile I look forward to the AHIP OPM FEHBP carrier conference which will be held on Thursday and Friday. Until then, I will try to take some advice from OPM's Feds Get Fit web site.

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