Today’s notice: Moving fast in a slow place. Clearing the field. Emergency power, literally.
Summer Legislatin’, Happened So Fast: Senators returned to Washington this week with a huge thing to accomplish (Republicans passing their version of the reconciliation bill) and a tiny amount of time to do it in. Tension appeared almost immediately, NOTUS’ Ursula Perano and Helen Huiskes report.
- The stated goal: “I think we’re on track, I hope at least, to be able to produce something that we can pass through the Senate, send back to the House, have them pass and put on the president’s desk by the Fourth of July,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters last night.
- The reality check: “We’ll get there eventually, probably by the end of July, would be my guess,” Sen. John Cornyn told reporters the same day.
The biggest policy problem is already obvious: There are enough Republican senators openly squeamish about the House version’s Medicaid cuts to blow the bill up in the Senate. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is due to appear at a Senate GOP lunch this week to discuss “how to fix the Medicaid program,” Sen. Rick Scott told NOTUS.