[Oceander]

If I recall correctly, the Senate bill - which originated in the Senate - contains at least one revenue-raising provision: the penalty "tax" on people who fail to buy insurance policies that make Pelosi feel all warm and fuzzy inside, which means that the Senate bill cannot be the ultimate bill because it didn't originate in the House, where all revenue-raising bills are required to originate according to cl. 1, sec. 7, Art. I of the Constitution.

[savedbygrace]

IIRC, what Reid did to move the current Senate bill is to take an unimportant House bill that wasn’t going to be passed, and he edited out almost all the text and substituted all of the text for the current Senate bill. That’s also how they were able to have a floor vote on it without going through committee. (The 3 bills that they used to build the final Senate bill all went through committee, though.)

Therefore, it is already set up to be a reconciliation bill with regard to procedural matters. They still have to make some major edits, and under the Byrd Rule it cannot have any provisions longer than 10 years.

But I could be wrong.