House aides have distributed a memo, describing in precise detail dozens of ways the House health care bill differs from the Senate package. It’s a useful primer, but it’s also a clear sign that the House, which will be forced to make major concessions to the Senate, isn’t prepared to roll over entirely. However, they may be on a different page than the White House, which is projecting confidence about the relative ease of the task ahead.
The memo begins by listing a single page worth of similarities between the two chamber’s bills. “However,” it goes on, “especially on a topic as historic and sweeping as health reform, there are differences between the chambers that will have to be resolved.”
What follows is an 11-page chart of disparities between the two packages–some narrow, some fairly significant–suggesting a complex job ahead for congressional and White House negotiators.
That’s not what the White House wants you to think, though.
“[T]here is an unavoidable temptation among the media to focus on the five percent of differences between the two versions, instead of the remarkable 95 percent the bills have in common,” reads a new post by Dan Pfeiffer on the White House blog. “The reality is that the two versions of reform legislation are vastly similar – built upon a shared foundation that will provide stability and security for Americans with insurance, affordable options for those without, and lower costs for families, businesses, and the government.”
It’s true that Democrats have reached the home stretch in their year-long push to pass a health care bill. But House leaders don’t want anybody to be left with the impression that they’re going to swallow every last measure in the Senate bill. There are key differences, they say, and, particularly after the demise of the public option, the House ought to be given precedence on many of them. We’ll know soon how successful they are.
