Within the hour, the Senate will pass the third and final cloture vote on their health care bill, almost certainly with 60 Democratic votes and no Republican ones, clearing the way for final passage on the bill tomorrow morning. At that point, the House and the Senate will have to reconcile their bills in a [...]

With the votes to pass health care in the Senate a fait accompli, everyone has turned their attention to the conference committee, and the numerous knotty issues involved in reconciling the House and Senate bills and arriving at something that can pass both chambers. Democratic Senators spent the weekend vowing that whatever comes out in [...]

The Hill had a story today about how some liberals and labor groups were easing their threat to “kill the bill.” That is perhaps best exemplified by Andy Stern, who followed up his open letter to members with a conference call just now. In it, he sharply criticized several aspects of the Senate health care [...]

A new wrinkle in the health care negotiations in the Senate – in return for a climb-down on the public option, some Democrats are seeking different measures, like a buy-in to Medicare for ages under 65. The proposal would lower the age of eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 55, though an age limit of [...]

I fully expected that Republicans would lie about this morning’s CBO report about the effect of the Senate health care bill on insurance premiums. I didn’t think it would happen so fast. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, just said on the Senate floor that the CBO report shows that the Senate bill would “increase [...]

In a report sure to be misread by partisan Republicans, the CBO has done an analysis on the effect of the Senate health care bill on premium costs. It shows that most people in the exchanges would see massive reductions in their average premium, and even in small groups and the employer market costs would [...]

Jon Walker has gone line-by-line through the Senate health care bill and the CBO analysis, so I won’t replicate his concerns here. In short, he believes the Senate bill has poor risk adjustment, meaning that the insurance companies will be empowered to still game the system, just in different ways; he’s appalled at the creation [...]

Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown reports: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will huddle with about a dozen progressive Democratic senators at 6 p.m. about the public option, aides said. No bill announcements are expected today. You’d have to think that there’s something new to talk about here, and that could be the CBO scores which could [...]

As I noted, Harry Reid will unveil the merged Senate health care bill today at 3:15pm ET. This is pretty much on the expected schedule. Here are the key questions I’d like to see answered about the bill: • The public option. Most reports say that Reid will include a national public option with a [...]

By now you’ve probably heard about Nancy Pelosi’s decision to include the more liberal version of the public option in the final House bill, the one that includes Medicare + 5% rates, as the Progressive Caucus has sought, instead of negotiated rates. This may be slightly premature. Whatever bill she releases will be guaranteed to [...]

It’s draining to chase down all the public pronouncements on health care reform and the public option, which usually ends up with something Jane Hamsher has called working the yo-yo. Some Democrat or White House official backs off the public option, says it isn’t the entirety of reform, outrage ensues, and they walk it back. [...]