by Emily Campbell
Congress was in the eye of the legislative hurricane last week, after
the House’s close vote on health reform over the weekend and before
the Senate package emerges. Meanwhile, the talk this week was all about
jobs. Not much to report on the estate tax and debt limit extensions; we
don’t expect action on either until December.
HEALTH REFORM
Last Saturday evening the House passed its historic health
reform bill, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The margin was
slim, but the victory is enormous – it’s a big step in the right
direction for significantly increasing the number of people with health
insurance and starting the difficult process of curbing cost growth in
the healthcare sector.
Thanks in large part to the last-minute outreach from advocates back
home, several Members who were on the fence voted for the legislation
including Kaptur, Space, and Wilson. Representatives Boccieri and
Kucinich joined Ohio’s Republican Members in voting “no” on the
bill. Kucinich cited the weakness of the Public Plan Option as the
reason for his decision, while in a statement posted on his website,
Boccieri stated that the bill does not do enough to reduce costs over
time. Boccieri has not ruled out voting for the final bill that emerges
from Conference Committee so advocacy in the coming weeks will be
critical.
Action Steps
If you reached out, please be sure to thank your
Representatives who voted in favor of the health reform bill if you
haven’t done so already.
Senate
Majority Leader Reid would like to start floor debate on a
merged Senate bill next week, before the Thanksgiving break but that is
looking less likely since CBO has not completed scoring the provisions
to be included in the package.
The push to move is a response to requests from Republican senators to
debate the bill for at least four weeks. So expect long days as well as
weekend sessions once the Senate takes up a bill.
The Democratic leaders’ goal is to complete floor action on a health
care bill by Christmas. We expect the merged bill to cost less than the
President’s $900b limit, and to include changes in the subsidy
structure and the employer mandate.
According to media reports, an increase in the Medicare payroll tax on
high-wage earners is being considered in the Senate as a source of
funding for health reform. We think it should be considered on top of
the excise tax although we understand some of this would replace a small
part of the excise tax.
STATE FISCAL RELIEF
Now that they have voted on a health reform measure, the House has
turned its attention to jobs-creation and wants to take up some kind of
jobs legislation before the end of the year. The extended unemployment
benefit program and the COBRA provision adopted in ARRA both expire in
December, providing a vehicle for further legislation. It appears that
House leaders do not want to put together another massive package like
ARRA. Instead, this package (often described as a “jobs bill”) is
expected to be smaller and more narrowly focused on mechanisms to spur
job growth. This package is the most likely vehicle for extending fiscal
relief to the states, though we are going to have to work hard to make
that happen.
APPROPRIATIONS
The President has signed five of the twelve appropriations bills,
including the Interior conference report which contained a continuing
resolution to extend funding for programs without an approved
appropriations bill through December 18.
CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE
The House and Senate will both be out of session during the week of
Thanksgiving. House Majority Leader Hoyer has now indicated the House is
likely to be in session until December 22nd and could come back into
session after New Year’s weekend if needed. The Senate is likely to be
most of December as well.