The Senate parliamentarian has delivered a blow to Democratic efforts to pass health care legislation by ruling that President Obama would have to sign the Senate health care bill into law before the Senate could modify it through reconciliation, according to a report by Roll Call, citing Republican sources.
While this wouldn’t make it impossible for Democrats to pass a health care bill, if the report is accurate, it would make the route to passage more difficult, because House members would have to take a leap of faith in voting for a Senate bill that they don’t like, based only on the assurances from the Senate that they would act to fix the bill once it gets signed.
