Created thru the Budget act of ‘'74, the reconciliation process was created to change current law, in order to bring revenue, spending and debt-limits into conformity with the Budget resolution.

Reconciliation has been used 23 times since it was first initiated in 1980. While reconciliation applies to bills considered in the House & Senate, the House has a very powerful Rules comm. This committee can easily restrict floor consideration of any bill with little interference by the Minority. The Senate does not have such a committee and either operates by clearing unanimous consent agreements outlining debate parameters, or through the regular order. Regular order usually occupies many days of debate time and can require 60 votes to limit a filibuster at several stages of Senate consideration. This vote to limit debate is called cloture. 

This fact sheet will reference only Senate procedure for reconciliation. Point of reference, of the 23 times a reconciliation bill was passed in the Senate, the average "yea" vote for passage of these bills in the Senate is 67.25.  

Health Care under Reconciliation-Debate limited to 20 hours + time for a vote-a-rama

(all times are equally divided between the 2 leaders)  

--To call up the bill-No debate allowed 

--Debate on the bill--Limited to 20 hours

--Places control of amdts and subject matter including amdts offered during the vote-a-rama

--Restricts the various motions needed to send the bill to conference with the House (3 in total)-1 hour each

--Restricts the various motions that could be made while passing amdts between Houses-30 mins to 1 hour for each

--Time limits and restricts other motions

--Conference report-Limited to 10 hours  

Regular order process for Health Care -unlimited debate, multiple cloture votes required

(Where cloture is noted, it requires 60 votes to invoke. If invoked, debate is limited to 30 hours w/other restrictions. Requires 1 intervening day to pass between initiating a cloture vote and the actual cloture vote occurring) 

--To call up the bill-unlimited debate-Cloture required

--Debate on the bill-unlimited amdts and unlimited subject matters. Maj. Leader may use his priority recognition to block much of this--Cloture required

--To force a final passage vote-Cloture required 

--To adopt amdts between Houses-Cloture required

--Up to 3 cloture motions needed to send the bill to conference with the
House

--Conference report-Unlimited debate-Cloture required 

Conclusion-Reconciliation in the Senate means results 

While more than 6 cloture votes could easily be needed while using the Regular order in the Senate to pass the Health Care bill and ultimately send it to the President for his signature, using the Reconciliation process to pass Health Care isn’t without its own problems. The Public option language may be subject to “Bryd Rule” points of order and other popular programs may not be germane under Reconciliation.. Notwithstanding these problems and the issue that the programs created under reconciliation must sunset after the period instructed by reconciliation (In this case it is 10 yrs), the reduced time limits, majority vote requirements and other controllable provisions could make the reconciliation process the easier of the two options available to the Senate for success in passing the Health Care bill in the Senate. 

 Note* Familiar legislation that was passed thru the Senate via RECONCILIATION INCLUDE:

Welfare reform ’96, Creation of SCHIP Program ’97, Bush Tax cuts 2001

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