BluntPolitics.com

By Ric Joyner, CEBS, CFCI

The House has just released their version of HCR. The Senate posted theirs recently. The two bills must be approved in each chamber to move to “conference”. Conferencing allows the bills to be blended into one final bill. Next, both chambers vote to approve a final bill, and then on to the President’s desk for signing into law. Due to the issues some representatives have with government run health care, called the public option, which is included in each bill, there is a tough fight in both chambers to pass respective bills into one.

Here is a synopsis from our friends at Kilpatrick Stockton.

Summary: http://www.screencast.com/t/xlAkiUKAA

From the KS Health and Welfare Team:

Not to be outdone by the Senate action on consolidating its two outstanding health care reform bills, the House of Representatives released its revised health care reform bill today.  Apparently, the House is attempting to break the record on how many different existing statutes it can amend with one bill.  I say this because the revised bill drops in at 1,990 pages - almost 1/3 more than the previous bill.  I have attached a summary produced by the House (only 11 pages).  The actual bill is linked below.

http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf

Mark L. Stember
Kilpatrick Stockton LLP
Suite 900
607 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005-2018
t 202 508 5802
f 202 585 0018

Ric Joyner, CEBS, CFCI

Joe Lieberman an independent  Senator from Connecticut which usually votes with the democrats, has just announced he will side with the Republicans on a filibuster of the Senate version of health care reform. Olympia Snowe a Senator from Maine also will side with the Republicans against the bill. Unless a compromise can be reached soon the bill is effectively “dead” in the Senate! The result is that the bill is prevented from moving out of the Senate to be joined with a House version. Both Senators are citing the public option (government take over of 20% of the economy), as their reason for not backing the bill. This news is  a blow to democrats who want a government take over of 20% of the economy. We are for fixing the people who do not have coverage, but this bill according to the Congressional Budget Office  (CBO) will not cover enough of the uninsured, potentially cost trillions of dollars and millions of jobs.