We're in the final push for the passage of the health insurance reform legislation, and Speaker Pelosi has convened a roundtable of bloggers to discuss the endgame.
The emphasis, to be sure, is on the substance of the bill. But at this stage, it's impossible to avoid a discussion of process. Which suits me just fine, of course.
Here's the rundown on the options the House has before it, according to the Speaker, for finishing the House's work (barring Senate amendment of the reconciliation bill, that is).
Option 1: Hold separate votes on passage of the Senate bill (actually, a vote on agreeing to the Senate amendment to H.R. 3590) and then a vote on the reconciliation package containing the fixes.
Option 2: Place self-executing language in the rule for the reconciliation bill that deems the Senate amendments agreed to upon passage of the rule.
Option 3: Place self-executing language in the rule for the reconciliation bill that deems the Senate amendments agreed to upon passage of the actual reconciliation bill in the House.
The first option is very unpopular in the House, since Members are really unhappy and uncomfortable with some of what's in there. They're only willing to swallow the Senate bill after they've made significant progress toward making changes on it.
The second and third options are very similar, the only difference being when the self-executing language is in fact executed. Option 3 gets the House furthest down the road toward finalizing things before the Senate bill gets finished. That is, the House will have passed reconciliation and sent it to the Senate, putting the preferred changes out on the table before agreeing to send HR 3590 to the President for signature.
The Speaker took care to say that nothing's been finalized in terms of this decision, but her preference is clearly for #3.