No Health Care Bill Until February?

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: Health Care

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Senior administration officials have told Politico that the White House is expecting negotiations on the health care bill to drag into February – which would mean that President Obama would not be able to tout passage of the legislation at his State of the Union address.

That speech will likely occur in late January or early February.

Once the Senate passes the bill, which is widely expected to take place tomorrow morning, the action moves to conference committee. That's where the House and Senate versions of the bill are reconciled. Once a final bill is hammered out, both chambers must then vote on the combined bill before it goes to the president for his signature.

But this work won't begin immediately. The House does not return until January 12th from its winter break, and the Senate does not return until January 18th. The Congressional Budget Office will also need to spend at least a week to calculate the cost of the compromise the bill before lawmakers vote on it.

Among the issues likely to complicate the conference process is abortion. The House and Senate versions of the bill both include restrictions on abortion coverage, but the House language is more strict: An amendment in the legislation prohibits women from using federal subsidies on health care plans that cover abortions, and also restricts any public plan from covering abortion.

The Senate plan, by contrast, does allow women who are subsidized by the government to enroll in plans that cover abortions, though they would have to pay for the abortion coverage separately.

With both abortion rights supports and opponents in both chambers taking strong positions on the issue, crafting compromise language acceptable to a sufficient number of lawmakers will likely be a challenge.

In general, because the 60-vote coalition supporting the bill in the Senate leaves no room for error, the compromise bill is widely expected to track more closely to the Senate version than the House version.

But since there is a large block of House Democrats who would oppose the bill if they are displeased with the abortion language, negotiators will likely not be able to simply largely adopt the Senate bill's handling on that particular issue.

There is some good news for the White House, however, when it comes to the overall bill: Democrats in the more-liberal House are signaling that they will largely accept the Senate version, a fact that should make the conference process less difficult.

More on Health Care:

Obama Defends Health Bill as Passage Nears
Abortion Still Threatens Health Care Bill
Senate Moves Up Final Health Care Vote
A Legal Challenge to Nelson's Health Deal?
Health Care Bill Puts Pain Before Gain
Health Care Bill Clears Second Senate Vote
Senate's Deal: Compromise or Corruption?
Tallying the Health Care Bill's Giveaways
Harkin: Dems Focused on Health Reform Big Picture
Comparison of Senate, House Health Care Bills
Some Seek to Kill the 60-Vote Filibuster
Washington Unplugged: Dean Tells Dems to "Toughen Up"
Washington Unplugged: Rep. Stupak Opposes Senate Abortion Compromise
CBSNews.com Special Report: Health Care

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
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by gmgl-2009 December 23, 2009 3:15 PM EST: No your health costs won't be less in the future. Sorry. They took out any competition from a Public Option in the Senate and the insurance companies still get to compete as monopolies because they stripped the anti-trust too. The insurance companies have no reason to hold down costs and now 30 million new forced customers. Theres a few little fig leaf reforms in there. Senator Sanders threw in some nice clinic but its only about 10 billion of an 800 billion dollar bill.

I hope as a dem and for the dems sake they scrap this now awful bill and move on to something popular like jobs.; Reply to this comment


by ocreader December 23, 2009 2:33 PM EST: I, too, have "issues" with the 4-years of collecting the monies for the new insurance scheme and continuing current coverage..isn't that a tax increase? As for citizens yelling, it's happening, the media just isn't giving coverage and congress and obama don't care what the people think!; Reply to this comment

by Brokennews December 23, 2009 2:12 PM EST

Dang!

I was looking forward to watching my health insurance premiums & health care cost to start dropping!! That's what going to happen, right?
I mean I'll start paying less for insurance & services, correct?
Somebody please confirm that my overall health care costs are going to be less in the future because of this reform!!??

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by lawmom90 December 25, 2009 4:48 PM EST: Sorry, Broken. It is my firm belief that when you give the government this control over your health, your privacy and your purse, it can only get bad.


by mcapek December 23, 2009 1:57 PM EST: Steal money from seniors Medicare (I cannot wait to see what seniors will say about loosing 400 billion in their Medicare benefits; somehow I doubt that will improve their care) and tax the "rich" to pay for it, and still wind up with countless billions in federal debt. And this proposal will cost lot more than the wildly optimistic estimates (as is always the case). People who don't care will pay a tiny fine, and only sign up for insurance when they need it because of illness, and at that point they cannot be turned down for preexisting condition. That will drive up costs for the rest of us even more; watch insurance rates skyrocket!!! Middle class gets screwed by Democrats again. Not to mention all the backroom dealing, preferential treatments, denial of women's abortion rights, etc. that went into making this bill. This turkey smells bad and should be thrown out.; Reply to this comment

by cheteunice December 23, 2009 1:35 PM EST

Is no one concerned by the hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars being used to buy votes of hold out senators? The figure appears to be at least a billion! Why aren't citizen groups and private citizens yelling their brains out over this? Are we all sheep who have grown simply accept all that our leaders do?

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by retm-w December 23, 2009 2:44 PM EST: skyk-2009 And THOUSANDS die who have health Care. Within my own family my parents, mother and fatherinlaw, some aunts and uncles and cousins. All had health care and still died, just because you have health care doesn't mean you're not going to die.


by luadda22 December 23, 2009 2:50 PM EST: skyk, you call this a "fix"? Your standards must be very low. Besides name me one government program that has not cost more money than projected (in most cases a lot more money and has increased the debt). As far as other countries, how about Canada, a population less than California, easy. How about France and England, a population less than California and Texas, easy. Shall I continue? We have over 300 million to cover and almost 50% of so called "tax payers" pay no federal income tax. Of course because of your "wealth envy" we can just let the top 2% pay for everyone.

by babooph December 23, 2009 1:31 PM EST

The photo makes it look like a halo over the president-I guess after Bush ,any new president would seem to have one...

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by luadda22 December 23, 2009 3:21 PM EST: skyl, I wonder if you would be singing the same song about the "Man the People have picked" if McCain had won? Remember almost 2/3's of registered voters did not vote for Obama. So don't say it was a mandate or a majority of the people.

by bc-1948 December 23, 2009 1:31 PM EST

If the Republicans hadn't chosen to make this into a political football - and been willing to work with the Democrats in the committees, it wouldn't have come down to having to rely on two Senators working the system to their advantage. But, Healh care reform is more than just a few items the House Republicans finally put in a last minute "alternative" - it needs comprehensive overhaul. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible - and I don't know how you ever reach compromises when one party doesn't want comprehensive change the the other party does. The 65 Medicare bill had 13 Republican Senators and 68 Republican House members that voted for it. Some Democrats did not. That is what keeps something from being held hostage by one or two people. Instead, we get "death panels" - probably the biggest lie of all, cuts in Medicare - when the "cuts" is only reducing the cost curve going forward - that is, looking to cut 10% of the projected double digit yearly increases.

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by retm-w December 23, 2009 2:05 PM EST: Yep it's all the repubs fault, even though the dems have the majority and they can't work out compromise between themselves without bribes.