FAA debate morphs into healthcare debate

Today's afternoon debate on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorization bill has turned into a debate over healthcare in anticipation of votes on the law's repeal sometime tomorrow.

"All of the sudden, here we are on health," Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) this afternoon. He spoke at length on the FAA bill early this afternoon, only to have debate shift to healthcare after Senate leaders said they would consider both a healthcare repeal bill and a 1099 repeal bill as amendments.

Rockefeller himself took to the floor just after 4:30 p.m. to talk about healthcare rather than the mostly non-controversial FAA bill. He said that far from resenting the sudden shift, he thinks it shows that the Senate is operating openly because it is allowing members to bring up issues they care about.

The debate so far has been largely repetitive of past positions. Democrats such as Rockefeller, Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) warned that repealing the law would raise the deficit and limit healthcare options. Republicans such as John Cornyn (R-Texas) took to the floor to say repeal is needed to limit government overreach and respect the demands of voters.

There is a possibility of a fight tomorrow over how to repeal the 1099 reporting requirements in last year's healthcare law. Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) has introduced his own 1099 repeal language that would ask the Office of Management and Budget to rescind $39 billion in discretionary funds in order to make up for the cost of the proposal, an idea that most Democrats rejected.

The Democratic alternative was a bill from Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to repeal the 1099 language without paying for it, but this too was rejected. Stabenow put forward her own amendment to repeal the 1099 requirement, but it has not yet been released.