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Health
Reform Publications
Click below for
information on recent developments in nationa health care reform legislation.
District-level Analysis of the Benefits of Health Care Reform
The House will vote soon on health care reform legislation. Please find information (pdf) below about the impacts of health care reform legislation in each Illinois district. This analysis includes information on the impact of the legislation on middle class families, small businesses, seniors in Medicare, health care providers, and the uninsured.
1st: Bobby Rush (D)
2nd: Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D)
3rd: Daniel Lipinski (D)
4th: Luis Gutierrez (D)
5th: Mike Quigley (D)
6th: Peter Roskam (R)
7th: Danny Davis (D)
8th: Melissa Bean (R)
9th: Janice Schakowsky (D)
10th: Mark Kirk (R)
11th: Deborah Halvorson (D)
12th: Jerry Costello (D)
13th: Judy Biggert (R)
14th: Bill Foster (D)
15th: Tim Johnson (R)
16th: Donald Manzullo (R)
17th: Phil Hare (D)
18th: Aaron Schock (R)
19th: John Shimkus (R)
Final Health Bill Timeline Emerges
By Alex Wayne, CQ Staff
March 12, 2010
House leaders are positioning for a final vote on health care overhaul legislation as soon as next week, though it is unclear that they will be able to corral 216 members needed to pass the measure.
Congressional Budget Office scores of the final bill were expected Friday, and two key committees have scheduled votes on the bill for next week.
Meanwhile, it appeared doubtful that anti-abortion members of the House Democratic caucus had the numbers to block legislation on the floor. Their leader, Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, has said that about a dozen members are against the Senate-passed bill (HR 3590) because they believe its restrictions on abortion coverage are insufficient. However, some of those members are wavering in their opposition.
According to plans under discussion Thursday, the Budget Committee would act first, on March 15. It is expected to approve a bill - to be moved under expedited budget reconciliation procedures - that would amend the Senate's legislation, according to Republican and Democratic aides.
The Rules Committee would then follow on March 17, said its chairwoman, Louise M. Slaughter, D-N.Y., with a rule for debate on both the reconciliation bill and the Senate health care bill. The full House could then take up the measures together, as soon as the next day, Democratic leaders say.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would not commit to a timetable. "We will take up the bill when we're ready to take up the bill," she told reporters Thursday. "But it is not something that we want to drag out. Because the decisions are made; the choice has to be made."
But one lawmaker, who asked not to be identified, quoted Pelosi as saying to her caucus: "I'm hearing that you'd like to move sooner rather than later. Is that the will of the body?"
"There was a broad shout of 'Yes!'" the lawmaker said. "I think everybody understands. We need to move on, we've got other things we've got to do, this is our last, best chance, let's get it in front of the bodies and have appropriate votes and if it passes, it passes, and if it doesn't, it doesn't."
Getting the health care legislation through the House is the first step in the Democrats' endgame for the overhaul. Leaders are contemplating a process in which the House would draft a rule for the debate that would deem the Senate bill passed upon adoption of the rule, to avoid a vote directly on the Senate bill that many House Democrats dislike. The House would then pass a "corrections" bill containing policy changes favored by House Democrats, and use budget reconciliation rules, which require a simple majority for passage.
Procedure and Politics
But House Democrats are nervous about the political fallout from such a strategy. And their fears intensified Thursday, after the Senate Parliamentarian's office weighed in on the process. He reportedly ruled that a budget reconciliation bill can only change existing law.
Republican aides, reporting the decision, interpreted it to mean the House would have to clear the Senate bill and President Obama would have to sign it before the reconciliation bill could be passed. House leaders had been hoping that the two bills could be passed almost simultaneously.
The parliamentarian, however, later reportedly clarified his position to Senate aides, saying that the reconciliation bill could be written in a way that would not require Obama to sign the Senate bill into law before the reconciliation bill is voted on.
Democrats had already been forging ahead in any case and were either not commenting or skeptical of the Republican account of the ruling.
A bigger procedural problem for Democrats could come in the Senate, where Republicans are expected to offer numerous amendments and points of order, which are allowed under the reconciliation process.
"I think you can presume there will be amendments that get into our views about how you can have better health policy, and get into a lot of other issues that some of our members want to have votes on," Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said Thursday.
Fighting Endless Amendments
Senate Democratic leaders are now trying to figure out how they would prevent Republicans from tying the chamber up in knots with such amendments. With no direct precedents to rely on, they might have to plow new ground to establish whether and when proposed Republican amendments considered under reconciliation rules should be ruled out of order as "dilatory."
It would make no sense, Democrats believe, to allow dilatory amendments to block passage of legislation that is designed to be immune to filibusters.
Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., predicted Thursday that Democrats would eventually cut off Republican amendments to a reconciliation measure, via a ruling from the chair.
"Reconciliation allows for unlimited amendments, but no one has ever abused that process," he said. "There comes a point where people offer amendments, they are voted on, and then we move on. If that's the case on health care reform, there won't be an issue. We hope it doesn't reach a point where it goes beyond that into something that is extreme or dilatory or not constructive."
Durbin acknowledged that there is no procedural precedent to cut off such attempts to thwart the bill. "If it reaches that extreme situation, we'll have to face it. I hope we don't," he said.
Gregg said he believed that Democrats cannot limit GOP amendments on reconciliation, and he characterized Durbin's stance as arrogant.
"That's an incredibly autocratic statement for someone to make who's in the Senate," he said. "If he wants to approach the Senate that way, he should have stayed in the House."
*Lives on the Line - Families USA Report on Deaths Due to Lack of Health Insurance - Families USA (pdf)
*Affordable Health Care for America Act - Detailed Summay (pdf)
*Healthcare Reform Will Help Illinois Small Businesses (pdf)
* America's Affordable
Health Choices Act (AAHCA) Bill Summary (pdf)
* AAHCA Public Option
Summary (pdf)
* The Cost of Doing Nothing on Health Care Reform in Illinois - New America Foundation (pdf)
* Costly Coverage: Premiums Outpace Paychecks in Illinois - Families USA (pdf)
* House Tri-Committee
Initial Draft Summary (pdf)
* Illinois
Delegation - positions on the Public Option (pdf)
*Senate HELP Committee
(pdf)
*List
of Illinois Delegation contacts (pdf)
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