What's next?

So, what do we all do in the wake of the final reform bill leaving committee? I'm not even sure myself, so here's another case of learning on the fly.

First, a review. My ecstatic tweets yesterday centered on Olympia Snowe (R-ME) crossing over as the sole Republican to show a smidge of qualified support for any of the plans on the table right now. Of course, the bill would have moved on anyway (since the Senate Finance Committee breaks down 13-10, advantage: Dems) but it could potentially open the door to other GOP support.
In short, yesterday was undoubtedly a big day legislatively. The question is whether or not it was also a big day politically.

Regardless, with even Snowe saying that no one should take this as any more than a "go-ahead" for the weakest plan available, it's time to start grinding sausage. It took a while looking around to find out what had to be done to reconcile these bills from all the different committees: high school civics leaves the process at subcommittee -> committee -> floor debate/amendments, and none of my poli sci classes found it important enough to ever fill me in on. Basically, the ultimate period of reconciliation is, well, reconciliation. It's a famously-opaque process that a bill tumbles through after being approved by both the House and the Senate before trundling off to the President's desk.

In this case, it's apparently just "up to each chamber of Congress" to unify their committee bills (2 for Senate, 3 for House). After that, Pelosi and Reid will have to pull some major teeth to get their legislation on the same page. How they'll decide whether or not to have make-or-break issues like the public option will come down strictly to which will garner that extra vote or two as they try to keep the liberal and conservative poles of their own party from walking away. It's tough maintaining a majority.
Once this unified bill hits the respective floors, only the amendments added during debate will need to be reconciled after the fact. I'm glad that we'll get to see that bill as a starting point, but I expect the debate process to send the legislation off in very different directions; if the Dems had the unity of the GOP, this wouldn't be a problem. Ideally, when Pelosi and Reid declare, "Behold, the sacred reform is here!" the Democrats would fall in line, make some bureaucratic amendments, and line up lock step to ensure passage. Instead, we'll probably have a weak public option thrown in by the more-liberal House, while the Senate continues to water things down and "saves costs" by cutting subsidies to poor families. We'll see legislation unify and diverge again, I think.

One thing to note yesterday, though, is the health insurance lobby (AHIP) has finally come out against the reform efforts. It tried the whole "sitting semi-cooperatively in the back of the room" strategy, but with reform finally gaining momentum and a sense of inevitability, they commissioned a study to show how espensive this is by none other than PricewaterhouseCooper, none other than the notorious folks that provided data for Big Tobacco. The fire is finally under their butts; the millions of new, mandated customers will be great, but this is not meant as a windfall to insurance providers, and they've finally realized that perhaps profits will decrease. Fancy that.
Since the insurance companies were never the darlings in this debate, their open opposition could come as an enemy to unite against for Democrats and even some Republicans. The bickering over the public option, reimbursement rates, and taxes could fall to the wayside as the urgency for passing health care reform heats up. The attitude could evolve such that the bill might not be perfect, but must be passed as a first step towards fixing a situation that's gotten utterly out of hand.

So, yesterday was a big day. Legislatively, huge (in such a public, drawn-out struggle). Politically, just another day in the life. Normandy looms, so to speak.