The House released their version of a year-end bill to extend unemployment benefits, a payroll tax cut and a “doc fix” to avoid a 27% cut in Medicare reimbursement. A look at the various elements of the bill make clear that Republicans have little interest in passing anything through Congress. The bill, written by House [...]

One of the major problems with the Affordable Care Act will come with the determination of what set of plans recipients can become eligible for. Under the law, Americans who make up to 133% of the federal poverty line can sign up for Medicaid. From 133%-400%, they are eligible to collect subsidies on a sliding [...]

I thought the President was pretty clear yesterday – he thinks we’ve cut the domestic and defense budgets to the bone, and any future savings must come out of a combination of tax revenues and so-called “modest adjustments” to health care programs. So you can forget about that defense-heavy trigger being fired, and even if [...]

The White House definitely wants the Catfood Commission II to negotiate their grand bargain that they can tout along the lines of “getting things done” with a “bipartisan compromise.” And they believe that the automatic cuts that would be triggered if the Catfood Commission II recommendations don’t come about are so distasteful to both sides, [...]

The Senate, as expected, passed HR 4 today, the first revision to the Affordable Care Act, repealing a revenue-raising provision that would have required small businesses to report vendor purchases above $600. They paid for the measure with the House pay-for, which penalizes recipients of exchange subsidies who change jobs or increase their income in [...]

The Senate has two votes planned this morning on HR 4, a bill already passed by the House that would repeal the 1099 reporting provision that would have required all businesses as of 2012 to report all vendor purchases over $600 to the IRS. This would have increased tax collection, according to the CBO, by [...]

While everyone slices and dices the tax cut deal, another deal has apparently been forged to patch the Medicare sustainable growth rate, colloquially known as the “doc fix.” Senate leaders avoided a 23% cut to Medicare reimbursement rates with a one-year deal that would, wait for it, change the subsidies on the exchanges. The deal [...]

The big news in the health care debate is that President Obama specifically stated that he prefers the excise tax on high-end insurance plans as a means to finance health care reform. That’s not surprising, he’s basically been saying that for months, as have his aides and allies. But the fact that this is one [...]

The Hill reports on last night’s meeting between House and Senate leaders and the White House, where the decision has been formally made to not formally hold a conference committee, potentially speeding passage of a health care bill. I say “potentially” because passage is going to hinge on a bicameral agreement, and that’s not going [...]

Paul Waldman’s piece about the differences to be worked out in the House-Senate conference committee on health care is a pretty nice recitation of the issues we’ve been discussing for several weeks. He offers ten specific issues: 1) Funding (House surtax v. Senate “Cadillac” excise tax) 2) The insurance exchange (House nationwide exchange v. Senate [...]

(Programming note: The Roundup will be delayed until later tonight) The Senate just passed a third and final cloture vote, by a count of 60-39, on the health care bill. In prior votes today, Jim Bunning did not vote, so I would assume in advance of a roll call, that he was the missing vote. [...]