The Senate is still playing nice between the two parties and probably will thru the first part of the coming week. However, by mid week, the Leader will have to either start to muscle the bill through the Senate by using his priority recognition to offer blocking amdts or pivot off of Health Care. You see, the Leader will need to begin to address vital pieces of legislation stacking up on the Senate calendar. By Friday, Dec. 18, the Federal Government will shut down unless a further funding bill(s) is passed. The Debt limit needs to be extended. The Drs. face a 21% cut in their reimbursement checks from Medicare after Dec. 31 unless the “Dr. fix” bill is passed. These are just a couple of the bills needing Senate attention.

This writer predicts that the Leader will make the final push to pass Health Care beginning mid week with an aim to conclude the bill by next weekend. If he fails or isn't ready, he will pivot to the other items. They will show up in the Senate chamber in the form of 2 Conference reports. The House Leadership will split the remaining Government funding bills so that some are included in 1 conf. report and the remaining in another conf. report. Then they will sprinkle the various other bills into the 2 conf. reports, creating a too big "not to pass" campaign. Sound familiar? When this occurs, there will be four 60 vote threshold votes that will be required in order to pass each of these two Government funding conference reports. Cloture on the conference reports and a waiver of Rule 28 which will be raised because the conf. reports will have exceeded their scope by adding the other bills. Here we go again with 4 more 60 vote tests in the Senate. Mean while, behind the scenes, Sen. Vitter (R-LA) is trying to get his amdt. voted on to the Health care bill before the Majority Leader begins to control the floor and try to muscle the bill thru the Senate. The Vitter (D-LA) requires all Members of Congress to be covered under the pending health care bill.

Elizabeth Letchworth is the Owner-Founder of GradeGov.com, 4 times elected United States Senate Secretary for the Majority/Minority, U. S. Senate-retired, presently senior legislative advisor @ Covington & Burling, LLC