Senate Budget Chairman Conrad Predicts Senate Changes to Reconciliation Bill

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March 18, 2010

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said Thursday that it is unlikely the Senate will be able to pass a health care reconciliation bill unchanged from what the House passes.

Conrad said the Senate Parliamentarian has declined to make rulings on several issues in the bill that Republicans are likely to challenge under the “Byrd rule.” That rule states that, among other things, every provision of a budget reconciliation bill must have a budget impact and cannot be “extraneous.”

“Although we’ve spent many, many hours with the Parliamentarian, some things he has not yet rendered a conclusion” on, Conrad said. “He wants to hear from both sides before he does.”

Conrad continued: “Do I expect there will be some additional Byrd rule challenges that will be upheld? Yeah. I do.”

. . . more sausage-making. Ugh.

read more: http://www.rollcall.com/news/44356-1.html

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. . . anyone else wondering what else is getting left out of the Senate bill? So hard to get accurate info on what's in these bills.