In a meeting of House and Senate leaders intended to resolve differences in SCHIP legislation on Tuesday, Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) talked with House Ways and Means Committee Chair Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) about the possibility of a stand-alone Medicare bill, CongressDaily reports (Johnson, CongressDaily, 9/11). SCHIP legislation approved by the House (HR 3162) would reduce payments to Medicare Advantage plans and increase the federal cigarette tax by 45 cents per pack to increase funding for SCHIP by about $50 billion over five years. The bill also would make a number of revisions to Medicare.

The Senate version (S 1893) would reauthorize SCHIP and increase the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents per pack to boost funding for the program by $35 billion over five years. House leaders last week reaffirmed their commitment to retaining portions of House SCHIP legislation that would affect Medicare (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 9/6).

Rangel said he was unsure how House lawmakers would react to the notion of a separate Medicare bill. "It's hard for me to separate this bill," Rangel said, adding, "It wasn't sold in two parts. I can tell someone, 'Trust me, we're taking Medicare up later.' And they'll say, 'Well, that's the only reason I went for the cigarette tax.'" While lawmakers thus far have been unable to reach a compromise on the legislation, Baucus said the two chambers will "work it out." Baucus noted that Senate leaders support his insistence that the compromise meet the 60-vote threshold in the Senate (Johnson, CongressDaily, 9/11).

Grassley Suggests New Legislation
In related news, Senate Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said he hopes Senate leaders can persuade House Democrats to support a new bill that would mirror legislation (HR 976) passed Aug. 2 by the Senate to reauthorize and expand SCHIP, CQ Today reports. Passage of the new bill would allow the chambers to avoid convening a conference committee, Grassley said.

Grassley noted that he is unsure if House Democrats are supportive of this approach, and a spokesperson for Rangel said that Democrats do not agree with the step. Grassley also said that Congress likely will need to pass an extension of SCHIP if lawmakers cannot reach an agreement on the bill by Wednesday. He said, "In the next 24 hours, we will know if it's possible to do SCHIP before the end of the month" (Wayne, CQ Today, 9/11).

Continuing Resolution
Meanwhile, House and Senate Democrats are close to finishing the details of continuing resolutions that would provide short-term extensions for the agriculture appropriations bill and SCHIP, aides said Tuesday, CongressDaily reports. The CR, which likely would last no longer than Nov. 16, would not include funding for the Iraq war.

According to CongressDaily, the CR would "provide a month or more of breathing room for what are likely to be intense negotiations on Iraq war spending, domestic appropriations, [SCHIP] and other must-do bills" (Cohn, CongressDaily, 9/12).