The package is the product of painstaking negotiations and will give Democrats a chance to achieve important policy goals ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Once the legislation passes the Senate, it must then be approved by the House of Representatives before President Joe Biden can sign it into law. The House is poised to return to take up the legislation this Friday, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office. Senate Democrats need only a simple majority to finally pass the bill, using a process known as reconciliation, which allows them to avoid a Republican filibuster and its 60-vote threshold. However, for a bill to pass through the reconciliation process, the package must adhere to a strict set of fiscal rules. And Republicans are using vote-a-rama to put Democrats on the spot and force politically tough votes. As expected, key insulin provisions were removed from the bill after Republicans raised a procedural issue, resulting in a vote to remove them. The final vote was 57-43. A threshold of 60 votes was needed to keep the provision in place. Provisions originally included in the bill would cap insulin prices at $35 a month both in the private insurance market and through Medicare. However, the senator ruled that the cap on insulin in the private insurance market did not comply with the reconciliation rules that Democrats use to push their legislation through the House. Democrats kept both provisions in the bill anyway, but Republicans raised a procedural issue to force a vote to strike the provisions only from the private market. Medicare’s $35 insulin cap remains in place. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats were considering making delayed changes to tax provisions in the bill ahead of an expected House vote on the package Sunday afternoon, according to West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. It’s unclear what exactly is being discussed or how significant the changes would be. Manchin suggested that Democrats might offer an amendment on the floor to reflect those changes. This story has been updated with additional developments. CNN’s Manu Raju and Kristin Wilson contributed to this report.
