Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Potential “Cash for Cloture” Amendment (#3357) Vote

Wanted to alert you to the possibility of a vote on an amendment (#3357) to the Baucus substitute offered by Sen. Dodd.  This amendment would include a one-year extension of Section 508 hospital reclassifications included in the Baucus substitute, but would also add a third subsection providing specific Medicare wage increases to hospitals in Connecticut and Michigan.  These provisions were added in the manager’s amendment of the Senate health care bill (page 2205, line 10 through page 2206, line 9 of H.R. 3590 as passed the Senate and available on LIS) as part of the “Cash for Cloture” package in December.

With the President today calling for the removal of “provisions that were more about winning individual votes in Congress than improving health care for all Americans,” some may question whether Democrats’ latest health care strategy is NOT to abandon this kind of backroom dealing in the first place, but instead transfer it to other, less prominent, pieces of legislation like the jobs bill.