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Once the Senate passes its bill, the legislation will go to a House-Senate conference committee, where differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill will be ironed out. The conference committee report must then be agreed to by a vote of both houses before the bill can be sent to President Obama for his signature.
Several possible traps remain that could snare the legislation on its way from the Senate floor to the President's desk. If the House insists on keeping the publicly run health insurance option, several Democratic senators have already announced they will vote against the final bill. House conferees may try to remove the abortion restrictions in the Senate bill, in which case Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) ceases to be the 60th vote in favor.
Washington insiders say that Congress would like to send the healthcare reform bill to President Barack Obama in time for him to sign it before Christmas.
If the bill becomes law, it will mark the end of a 60-year-long Democratic quest for universal national health insurance. Or will it? Many liberals in the party, while recognizing the historic nature of the reform bill, remain dissatisfied with it because it does not set up a public health insurance plan. Pundits from The Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington on the left to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on the right have noted that the bill has been tailored mainly to benefit health insurance companies, and it is likely that liberal activists will continue to push for their ultimate goal -- a single-payer public health insurance system, first proposed by President Harry Truman in 1948 -- after this reform package becomes law.
Posted December 21st, 2009 by Sandy Smith
