President Obama and Speaker Pelosi are making what is widely considered to be the last effort before midterm elections to pass health care restructuring -- using the Senate health care bill. Even without the votes lined up, a decisive house vote is set to occur on or about March 20th. Obama has delayed his Asian oversees trip by several days in order to assist in this last push, and to presumably be present to sign a bill if it should pass.
The House will vote on whether to approve a bill (H.R. 3590) that already passed the Senate last December. The House is meant to trust that the Senate-- once reform has passed -- will pass a bill of “fixes” to its bill. There is not yet a Congressional Budget estimate of the cost of these “fixes”, nor is the Senate bound to consider such a bill.
With mounting uncertainty, democratic leadership plans to head into a showdown at the end of this week. Democrats themselves voiced doubt, with a senior administration official describing the vote outcome as “a jump ball.”
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