Health Care Reform - Splitting the Bill

Rumor has it that Democrats in Congress are beginning to ruminate on the idea of splitting health reform legislation into two parts. One part would include aspects related to budgetary issues and would be the most expensive provisions (e.g. subsidies for low-income individuals to purchase health insurance and an expansion of Medicaid) of the proposed legislation. This would likely pass solely with Democratic votes through a parliamentary budgetary maneuver called reconciliation. This requires only 51 votes - in contrast to the 60 votes usually required to pass legislation in the Senate. The second part of the reform legislation would involve insurance regulation and includes aspects such as mandates and caps on out-of-pocket expenses and would likely require heavy negotiating with Republicans and conservative Democrats.

A Wall Street Journal article about this can be found at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125072573848144647.html