When Congress returns after the July 4th holiday, it is expected that the Labor, Health, and Human Services (LHHS) Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee will meet to mark up their bill. It is likely that the bill will pass on by a party line vote and then be quickly considered at the Full Committee level.

Rumor has it that the House LHHS Subcommittee is drafting a bill but there is no word if it will ever go to markup.

It is also unclear how the two sides of the Capitol plan to rectify their dramatically different 302(b) allocations as discussed in a previous Capitol Health Record post. The Senate LHHS Committee received an allocation of $164.330 while the House cut down their spending cap to $121.797 billion to account for sequestration.

Without an end game in sight the clock seems to be counting down towards an omnibus or continuing resolution before September 30th. Stay tuned!