Like most Americans I am trying to figure out what is going to happen with President Obama’s proposed health care legislation. The President was correct in his assessment that speed was the biggest ally he had in getting his bill passed. Neither the House nor the Senate did what he wanted before the Congressional recess, although he spent an incredible amount of his personal time and political capital lobbying members of Congress. The President is spending a good part of August trying to restart the legislation and put out fires regarding issues raised by those against his legislation. His own administration has caused him problems with conflicting signals sent out regarding the public option portion of the bill. Obama does not want to give up on the public option, though he appears to be willing to give away other parts of his proposal if it will help get a health care bill through this fall.

Obama has two chances to get what he wants. The first will be in the conference committee. When a bill goes through the House and the Senate on a subject, but is not identical, a conference committee is set up between the House and the Senate to resolve the differences. The conferees are appointed by the majority party, and therefore the Democratic Party will control both the House conferees and the Senate conferees. Each body has rules that were put in to set limits on what the conferees can do. However, there are ways to bend these rules and expand the subject matter of the conference report.

Assume that a bill went through the House with some portion devoted to the public option in it, but no language in the Senate portion regarding public option. The committee could reinsert the public option in the conference committee and send the revised bill back to the House for a vote and to the Senate for a vote. Unless the opposition is able to make procedural changes, which is unlikely, the members of the House and Senate get to vote the legislation up or down, amendments are not allowed. You only need 51 Senate votes to pass the conference bill. This option is certainly one that the Obama team is considering.

The second option is to go ahead and get whatever parts of the bill can be passed and claim victory as the first step in health care legislation. Obama, because of the Democratic control of the Congress, could bring amendments to the bill whenever he thinks he has the political muscle to pass the amendments. It could be during this session of Congress or the next session beginning in 2011.

The odds are that the Democratic Party will continue to control both the House and the Senate. It may even be possible for the Democratic Party to pick up several seats in the Senate. In the House the Democratic Party will lose some seats but not enough to impact control. For those who oppose the Obama legislation, the only safe road is for them to ensure that no bill passes. The best chance for that happening is in the U.S. Senate.

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Lou Frey represented East and Central Florida in the U. S. Congress from 1969 to 1979.  He was the fourth Republican elected to Congress from Florida since the late 1800's.  In his last election, he received nearly 80% of the vote.  He was one of five elected Republican leaders in the House of Representatives during the 93^rd and 94^th Congress.  He served on...