Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will release today his version of healthcare reform. This is the latest in a long line of Democratic healthcare overhaul measures that have dominated Congress this year. Three House committees and two Senate committees passed their healthcare proposals before the full House approved their measure earlier this month.

Reid’s long-awaited version is expected to receive a test vote as early as this week.  Reid is unveiling his proposal after waiting on cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. Previous healthcare bills came out before the cost estimates and where soon criticized for their high price tags. This time Senate Democrats have scheduled a 5 p.m. EST closed-door briefing on the bill where the CBO will also provide cost estimates.

Reid needs 60 voted in the Senate during a procedural vote to move forward with the bill. That leaves little wiggle room as Democrats hold exactly 60 seats in the Senate. Some Democrats oppose the government-run insurance option while others are concerned that the measure may allow for the federal funding of abortion.

If the Senate ultimately passes its bill, then lawmakers will have to work out the differences between the Senate version and the already-passed House version of healthcare.

Today West Virginia Sen. Robert C. Byrd becomes the longest-serving member of Congress. He served in the House of Representatives from 1953-1959 and his current run the Senate began in 1959. This leads to a grand total of 56 years, 10 months, and 16 days. He broke the record previously set by Carl Hayden, the Democrat from Arizona who served in Congress from 1912 to 1969. That means Byrd and Hayden shared the halls of Capitol Hill for 16 years. Byrd, who turns 92 on Friday, has missed numerous votes this year due to bad health. But that has not kept him from casting more than 18,000 votes. Byrd is known in Congress for keeping a pocket-sized version of the Constitution and for his long, heart-felt floor speeches around the holidays. Byrd’s take on his record:

“I have strived to provide the people of West Virginia the best representation possible each of the 20,774 days which I have served in the Congress of the United States. The only way for me to close on this historic day is to say that I look forward to serving you for the next 56 years and 320 days!”

With the first pitch of the World Series happening tonight, political pundits are fretting that folks in New Jersey may suddenly find themselves more interested in the Yankees versus the Phillies than in Corzine vs. Christie. The two teams in this year’s Fall Classic are located near New Jersey, and already the heated governor’s race between Republican Christie and Democrat Corzine (plus Independent Daggett) is starting to get bumped off the state’s front pages in favor of sports coverage. This despite the fact that the election is less than a week away- fortunately it is on a scheduled off day so people will be able to vote.

Christie has been leading most of the year in the polls, sparking nationwide debate that Republicans are making an electoral comeback. But recently the race has tightened. And with multi-millionaire Corzine spending like he’s the New York Yankees (to a tune of $23 million of his own money), it’s a good bet that he will be in better shape to continue to plop down cash for commercials even though the World Series is expected to send ad rates skyrocketing.

All three candidates claim to be rooting for the Yankees. No word yet on how this will affect the Phillies voting block.

The White House has announced that President Obama on Wednesday will sign into law the defense spending bill that contains sweeping new hate crimes legislation.

Obama will sign into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 Wednesday afternoon.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Members of Congress, and others will join him.

Then later that day Obama will host a reception to commemorate the enactment of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

This act, named after a gay teenager and a black man who were both murdered, makes it a federal crime to discriminate based on sexual orientation, disability or gender.

Controversy erupted when this hate crimes act became tied to the $680 billion defense spending bill.

Tony Perkins, with the Family Research Council, said it forced lawmakers to choose between supporting the nation’s troops or their belief that the hate crimes act could interfere with the freedom of one’s religious beliefs:

“This hate crimes provision is part of a radical social agenda that could ultimately silence Christians and use the force of government to marginalize anyone whose faith is at odds with homosexuality. Expanding hate crimes puts America in lock step with the stated agenda of homosexual activists who will turn next to the so-called Employment Non-discrimination Act, followed by the repeal of the ban on homosexuality in the military and then the Defense of Marriage Act.”

News is breaking this afternoon that the Senate version of healthcare overhaul will include a government-run insurance option.  This greatly increases the likelihood of a public plan becoming part of any healthcare legislation.

The House bill already includes a government-run option.  But many observers doubted if the Senate, where Democrats have a thinner majority than the one they enjoy in the House, would include the controversial program.  The Senate Finance Committtee’s version of reform excluded a public plan.  But if it does become part of both bills, expect Republicans to amp up their protests against the bill.

Conservatives fear that allowing the government to compete with private insurance companies will create an environment that will eventually crowd out the private market and lead to a single-payer system where the government is the only option. Faith-based groups also have concerns about a public plan. We outline that in World’s current cover story. Bottom line: a public plan in both the House and Senate means this will not be a bipartisan bill.

What is up with President Obama and Maine? One day after Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe backed the Democrats’ healthcare proposal, becoming the first Senate Republican to vote for a healthcare bill this year, her Maine GOP colleague, Susan Collins, said she is open to voting for the measure as well when it comes before the full Senate:

My hope is we that can fix the flaws in the bill and come together with a truly bipartisan bill that could garner widespread support. I think this bill is far superior to the ones passed by the Senate (health) committee and the three House committees, but it needs substantial additional work.

With Democrats already holding a sizeable Senate majority, these two potential GOP defections could mean that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will have an easier than expected time getting the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. This would put healthcare reform as close to passage as it has ever been.  It will be interesting to see how well Republicans can fight the measure in the upcoming floor debate  … and if they can prevent any more defections.

With today’s passage of the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare bill, a total of three healthcare bills from five committees are now ready for their close-up on the main stages of the House and Senate. But which bill will lawmakers really vote on?  Now that committee action is finished, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is set to convene a series of closed door healthcare meetings in his office with key Democratic leaders and senior White House officials. Their objective: to merge the Finance Committee’s bill with the more liberal Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. That bill includes a controversial government-run insurance option that many conservatives fear could crowd out the private insurance market. I say Reid’s meetings will be closed door because Republicans will not be invited. This is a point Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell quickly made in a statement released soon after Tuesday’s Finance Committee vote:

The fact is, this proposal will never come before the Senate. But what we do know is that the bill written behind closed doors here in the Capitol will be another 1,000-page, trillion-dollar Washington takeover. We know it will slash a half-trillion dollars from seniors’ Medicare, add new taxes and raise premiums. That’s not reform.

The seemingly never-ending congressional healthcare debate looks closer to completion now with the Congressional Budget Office’s lower than expected estimate for a key Senate Finance Committee version. What to expect next? A likely passage of that bill by the committee next Tuesday, then Democratic congressional leaders will look to seize that momentum by quickly bringing it to the full Senate floor for debate. Expect a lot of fiery speeches on the Senate floor- you may want to TIVO (or DVR) CSPAN2 the next couple of weeks. A lot of senators who are not on any of the committees that oversee healthcare have been eagerly awaiting their chance to attack/stump for the bill in an official forum. Republicans will surely mount an aggressive verbal assault on the plan. It will be interesting to see who becomes the loudest and most eloquent critic of the measure (the two may not necessarily be found in the same senator).  Likewise, which senator will become the healthcare shining knight? New stars will arise in both parties given the bright media spotlight expected to shine on the debate.

In the end something will likely pass the Senate, but it will be interesting to watch how much- if any- Republicans can tone down the bill.  While a huge step, Senate passage does not mean victory for Democrats. A version has to pass the full House. That chamber has been waiting to see what the Senate does before acting on a their bill, which has long passed the three key House committee. Why the wait there? Some House Democrats felt burned this spring when they voted on a very liberal cap-and-trade climate change bill that is going nowhere in the Senate. That means they voted for a measure that is likely dead- and Republican opponents will be able to use that for cannon fodder during next year’s elections. So now the House wants to see if healthcare has legs in the Senate before attaching their names to another controversial bill.

As media outlets prepare for the upcoming debate, the media is starting to examine the bill’s particulars. Interestingly, the Associated Press seemed to suggest in its abortion piece that the healthcare bill would hurt the pro-life movement,as it will become easier to fund abortions:

WHAT IT MEANS: Women with private insurance plans that cover abortion might be able to switch to a less-expensive public plan without losing that coverage. Anti-abortion activists would feel they’ve lost an important battle, as taxpayer funds mingle with some insurance plans that, one way or another, pay for abortions.

This is something World has reported on numerous times already: pro-abortion lawmakers have repeatedly defeated amendments in the House and Senate, supported by members of both parties, that would have explicitly excluded abortion from the proposed federal insurance plans. Efforts to get this in the final bill will surely continue as healthcare moves outside the committee rooms and into the historic congressional chambers.

Stay tuned. (To CSPAN).

In a preliminary estimate, the Congressional Budget Office has weighed in on the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare bill, saying it will cost $829 billion over 10 years. Democrats are quickly latching onto the lower cost and will likely use it to push the bill through the committee as soon as tomorrow. CBO over the summer shocked everyone with a $1 trillion estimate, which fueled opposition to healthcare changes during August town hall meetings. We are now at the point where a $829 billion bill is cause for celebration among Democrats.  The CBO adds that the plan could reduce federal deficits by $81 billion over that same decade and would probably lead to “continued reductions in federal budget deficits” beyond that. CBO director Doug Elmendorf, however, stressed that today’s estimates were preliminary.

This means the bill is likely headed to passage in the committee. It’s next hurdle will be the full Senate, where it will be merged with a more liberal version from the Senate committee that overseas healthcare.  All 100 senators will finally get their crack at it in what will surely be the debate of the congressional year.

The Senate Finance Committee is expected to vote this week on their version of healthcare reform. If you’ve got nothing better to do today then feel free to read the bill’s full text: here. The cliff notes version is that most conservatives won’t like what it has to offer. After a week that saw senators blow through 564 amendments, lawmakers made few changes on the bill that pleased Republicans. Lawmakers did tweak the bill in cosmetic ways: exempting about 2 million people from having to obey the insurance mandate, reducing the top penalty for failure to buy insurance to $1,900 and defeating an official government-run public insurance plan.

But for social conservatives the news was the same: like in other congressional healthcare bills, senators defeated amendments that would have barred taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions and that would have prohibited the government from forcing health providers, such as hospitals and physicians, to provide abortions.

“The American people do not want, and should not be expected, to foot the bill for abortions,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who sponsored the amendments. “I will fight tooth and nail to make sure once this bill gets to the floor it is clear in the language that taxpayers’ dollars will not be used to fund abortions.”

The bill is expected to pass the committee this week and go before the full Senate this month where it will be merged with an even more liberal version from the main Senate committee on health. But before this week’s vote the Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its estimate of how much this bill will cost. Republicans hope a high estimate will slow down the healthcare reform train.