The Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee began hearings on health care reform last week amid reports of preliminary cost estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).   Senator Edward Kennedy's (D-MA) bill, the "Affordable Health Choices Act" was estimated to cost $1 trillion and cover only 16 million out of 47 million uninsured Americans.  The Senate Finance Committee's bill was estimated to cost $1.5 trillion.  Neither of those proposals was complete when scored.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), who was planning to release his draft legislation last week, delayed the release of that committee's proposal as well as the Senate Finance Committee's markup, which will be delayed until possibly after the July 4 recess.  The Senate HELP Committee, led by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) in ailing Chairman Kennedy's absence, will continue its daily hearings beginning at 3 p.m. yesterday through the end of the week.  The committee's archived hearings are available at:  http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2009_06_17_E/2009_06_17_E.html

House Democratic leaders from three committees of jurisdiction released an 852-page draft bill last week.  It excluded provisions on how to pay for the bill due to divisions between House and Senate Democrats. 

 

Some revenue proposals under consideration include taxing employer sponsored health benefits, increasing the Medicare payroll tax, adding a "value-added" tax, and taxing soda and alcoholic beverages.   The House bill includes a mandate on consumers to carry health insurance, and a mandate on employers to provide a health insurance benefit.  It also provides for a public insurance option that would compete with private insurance plans.

The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee will hold hearings on health reform on Tuesday and Thursday.  The House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees taxes, Medicaid and Medicare, will hold a hearing on Wednesday morning in which it is expected to release some of the first revenue details for the House Democratic approach.

The President has said he would like to sign health care legislation by October, setting an ambitious timeline for Congress.  Congressional Democratic leaders aim to complete their committee work and vote on the bills in their respective chambers before the August recess.  Differences between the final House and Senate bills - on how to fund the measure and what a public option would look like, for instance - could then be worked out in a conference committee in September.  However, timelines are slipping in both chambers making it less and less likely Congress will meet the October deadline.