With the Homeland Security
funding debacle in the House resolved the way most of House Speaker John Boehner's debacles with funding have been—with Nancy Pelosi's help, it's pretty clear that any legislating that gets done will get done because of Pelosi. And there's
quite a bit of it to come, as Greg Sargent points out, including replenishing the Highway Trust Fund and a looming debt ceiling hike.
There's another one pending, though, and hitting much sooner. That's the annual doc fix, the exercise Congress goes through every year to make sure that Medicare reimbursements to doctors aren't dramatically cut because Congress hasn't gotten around to fixing the bad formula for payments they enacted into law in 1997. Here's where there might actually be a glimmer of hope for some sanity in the House: Boehner and Pelosi have reportedly reached a deal for a permanent fix, one that also would end the fight over funding children's health.
A proposed congressional "doc fix" deal will include a permanent repeal of Medicare's sustainable growth rate formula and a two-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program with a total cost exceeding $200 billion.
The two are still negotiating, and all of the details aren't ironed out. Reportedly, just $70 billion of the costs will be offset, "split roughly evenly between cuts to providers and changes to benefits," meaning more cost-sharing for wealthier Medicare beneficiaries. The negotiations, just between the two House leaders, have being
ongoing for the past weeks.
"We've been taking them seriously for over a week now," said one lobbyist tracking the issue, speaking on background. […]
"The negotiations are strictly between” Boehner and Pelosi, said another lobbyist, speaking on background. "They've been keeping Reid and McConnell in the loop throughout this process."
Keeping the Senate out of this could undercut the effort before it really has a chance to hit either floor. There are other barriers, most notably get both Republicans and Democrats to accept spending cuts—not enough of them for the former, too many for the latter. On the other hand, this is as "must pass" legislation as you're going to get because it has two very strong constituencies behind it, physicians and seniors.
Bigger picture, it might just be signaling that Boehner is finally ready to stop catering to the crazies and actually start getting some real legislating done. At the very least, it will be a good test of his willingness to do just that.