Senate leaders consider timeline for health bill votes

Roll Call reports: "Senators may keep slogging through debate on their health care overhaul until the day before Thanksgiving, according to an adjournment resolution the House approved Wednesday. That measure provided for the Senate to adjourn Friday — or next Wednesday. The House is set to break on Thursday or Friday of this week." The Senate must first vote on a motion to proceed - to move the bill to the floor (Newmyer, 11/18).

Meanwhile, CongressDaily details several of the key provisions in the Senate bill and reports that a procedural vote is expected to proceed Saturday: "Democratic leaders' arguments for backing the motion to proceed hinge on their plans to move to a shell bill that will be filled in with the actual bill, Senate Majority Whip Durbin said. Durbin said he will argue that Democrats should agree to move to the bill and hash out disagreements through the amendment process. A senior Democratic aide said they expect to vote on the motion to proceed Saturday. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus was absent from the bill unveiling to be in Montana with his ailing mother. That raises questions whether the vote could be held as planned" (Edney, 11/19).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.