By Crystal Swann
October 26, 2009

Now that three House Committees and two Senate Committees have completed their work on separate health care reform bills, the tough work of combining those bills into one from the House and one from the Senate is now underway. In the Senate, leadership must merge the Senate Finance Committee and Health Education, Labor and Pension Committee bills. In the House, leadership is set to finalize their version of healthcare overhaul legislation for action in November.

In an Herculean effort, Congress and the White House have worked diligently over the last eight months, crafting legislation that overhauls the massive health care system in an attempt to provide health care to more than 47 million uninsured people in the U.S. Entering its final stages, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are in the process of writing one bill each, to be introduced for amendments, debate and ultimately final floor votes in their respective chambers.

Significant differences in the pending Senate committee bills must be addressed. For example, the Senate HELP Committee bill includes a “public option,” while Senate Finance Committee members struck down the public option provision in lieu of health care cooperatives. Over in the House, the tri-committee bill includes a robust, national “public option.” Once each chamber passes their respective bills, they must be reconciled in a House-Senate Conference Committee.

New polls released by CNN, CBS and others indicate that support is building for the “public option,” a government-run insurance plan that pays providers at rates tied to Medicare, to be included in any final bill. Advocates for health care reform registered over 300,000 calls in one day to the Congress calling for health care reform this year. To date, countless numbers of state and local officials have called for healthcare reform this year. Currently, 169 mayors have signed onto the Conference of Mayors letter calling for health care reform this year.

Democratic leaders are hoping to vote on reform legislation by Thanksgiving. In response to that statement, Senator Olympia Snowe, a key Senator on the Finance Committee bill, said, “That would be optimistic,” and she went on to agree that December would be more likely.