Senators voted first thing this morning to pass their health care reform bill.  The final vote was originally scheduled for this evening, but Republicans and Democrats struck a deal in which Republicans agreed to end their filibuster to allow the earlier vote.  This morning’s vote was the last in a string of procedural votes that have taken place every day since Monday’s 1 a.m. cloture vote, which ended debate on the bill. 

The Senate reform legislation, estimated to cost $871 billion, would extend coverage to 94 percent of legal residents who are currently uninsured – about 31 million people – by 2019.  The legislation also includes language supported by IHA related to value-based purchasing for hospitals, a low-volume adjustment for rural hospitals and expansion of the 340B program. 

Now that the Senate and House have passed their versions of health care reform legislation (the House bill passed in October), the next step is a conference committee, in which Senate and House leaders will hash out differences between the two bills and eventually merge them into one document that then must pass both chambers.  The conference committee’s timeline remains unclear, as Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has reportedly stated that preconference negotiations will begin as the Senate passes its bill and will continue over the holidays. 

The goal is to deliver a bill to President Obama before his State of the Union address at the end of January.  But with the House scheduled to be out of session until January 12 and the Senate until January 19, White House officials have reported that they do not expect a conference bill to pass both chambers until after the president’s speech.