By Crystal Swann
March 22, 2010

At the writing of this article, comprehensive health care legislation has not been passed and sent to President Obama for his signature. It’s most likely this will change in a few short days. House Democratic Leadership are working hard to get the 216 yea votes needed to pass the Senate version of health care reform, while simultaneously passing another bill with fixes to the Senate bill under budget reconciliation.

Under a two'step plan devised by House Democratic leaders, the House would approve the health care bill passed by the Senate in December, then make changes in a separate bill using a procedure known as budget reconciliation to avoid the threat of a filibuster in the Senate, as reported by the New York Times. Budget reconciliation, is a budgetary process devised to allow consideration of a contentious budget bill without the threat of filibuster. It’s intent is to streamline the debate process by limiting debate and only requiring a 51 vote simple majority to pass. While there are advantages, some disadvantages exist also. This process can only be used for legislation that affects spending and revenue and allows for unlimited amendments, each being deemed appropriate or not by the Senate Parliamentarian and in some cases by the Vice President, in his role as Senate President.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released the cost of the final legislation, at $940 billion. In a press conference March 18, House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn, reported that the legislation would reduce deficits by $130 billion in the first ten years and would reduce the overall deficit by $1.2 trillion in the following decade. The bill that the House passed in November would have reduced deficits by slightly more – $138 billion compared with $130 billion – in the first ten years, while the version passed by the Senate in December would have reduced deficits by somewhat less – $118 billion – according to the budget office, whose estimates are considered authoritative. As the Democrats gain support; House Republicans are introducing a resolution to force an up-or-down vote on the Senate bill.

If approved, many of the bill’s provision would not take place until 2013 or 2014 such as the requirement to purchase health insurance (2013) or the proposed government-run health insurance program (2014). However, for individuals who’ve been uninsured for over six months, a new temporary high-risk insurance pool will be created immediately to cover those individuals. The bill commits nearly $5 billion for the provision. In addition, both bills would, within six months, prohibit insurance companies from imposing lifetime limits on how much they will pay out and from dropping coverage if an enrollee becomes ill. Also, some of the taxes created by the bill would also take effect immediately, including a $6.7 billion fee on insurance companies and a five percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery — both of which are included in the Senate bill.