Legal Commentary

Back to the House

By Jonathan H. Adler

The AP is reporting that the health care reform amendment legislation being considered in the Senate will have to go back to the U.S. House of Representatives because Seante Republicans were successful in striking a few portions from the bill.

After nine straight hours of beating back Republican amendments, Senate Democrats hit a temporary snag Thursday in their drive to rush through a package of fixes to the big health care law signed by President Barack Obama.Democratic Senate leaders had hoped to complete work on the fix-it bill by midday Thursday and get it quickly to Obama to avoid prolonging what has been a politically painful ordeal for the party.

But Republicans learned early Thursday they will be able to kill some language in the bill that relates to Pell grants for low-income college students. That means the altered bill will have to be returned to the House for final congressional approval before it can be sent to Obama.

Democrats described the situation as a minor glitch, but did not rule out that Republicans might be able to remove additional sections of the bill.

More from the NYT here.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on March 25, 2010 (boomark / email).