How does Healthcare Reform Bill get to reconciliation? Anyone know??

[elizm]

Can it still be passed with 51 votes in reconciliation and what has to happen for it to get there?

[jwirr]

1. All bills that are passed in the House and Senate must be reconciled.

Each house creates and passes their own version and then before it is sent to the President it has to be melded into one bill using the various parts of the two bills. What we need now is for the Senate to be able to vote to end the discussion and pass as good a bill as they can. They should not have to compromise with the pugs very much anymore since we need only 51 votes to pass the bill (blue dogs are still our problem). But the pugs can keep us tied up with piddly amendments if we cannot end discussion and I think that takes 60 votes again. If the Senate does not pass a bill it will kill the whole issue.

[tritsofme]

3. You seem to be describing the House/Senate conference process not budget reconciliation.

Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the basics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_reconciliation

[bain_sidhe]

2. THe confusion comes from using the same name for two different processes

The reconciliation between the House and the Senate bills - the so-called "conference report" can be filibustered. It's like any other bill, except that it can't be amended. (And actually, it *can* be amended, but then it's not the conference report any more, and it has to go through the whole process again.)

The "Budget Reconciliation" process that has been talked about has to do with the budget passed in the spring. In that, was a line saying that "a health care reform bill saving "X" amount of dollars will be included among the overall spending bills Congress passes. That bill set a deadline for this to happen of October 15th. Since it didn't happen, the way is clear to write a bill that "reconciles" that line in the budget bill with the overall spending passed by Congress. THAT'S the bill that can't be filibustered, and only needs 51 votes to pass.

Two different "reconciliations." Clear as mud, but not half as much fun.