The Congressional Committee System and Healthcare Reform

On a daily basis, we see health reform news headlines, like “Congressional Committee Chairs to Lead Health Care Reform Effort,” “Obama Open to Baucus’ Idea of Taxing Health Benefits,” or “Sen. Kennedy helps launch Obama administration’s health-care effort.”

What role will congressional committees play in healthcare reform? To understand how the committee system affects healthcare reform legislation, we must have an understanding of the role of committees, what function the committee system plays in the legislative process, and how committee chairmanships may influence healthcare reform.

Committees in the Congressional Committee System
As it works on healthcare reform, Congress will use its committee system to control the congressional agenda and guide legislation from its introduction into Congress to its sendoff for the president’s signature. But what are committees and the committee system? The Congressional committee is defined as:

• Committees are permanent units established in the rules of the House and Senate, allowing Congress to effectively manage the number of proposals introduced
• In its legislative role, committees studying, sort, draft, and report legislation that has been referred into it
• In its executive role, committees are concerned with presidential nominations, treaties, and executive agreements
• As investigative bodies, they hold hearings, invite and subpoena witnesses to testify and to be interrogated, call for records, inquired into the operations of executive agencies and policies, and issue reports

The committees as a whole are a highly complex system, partially hidden from the public audience, with the following functions:

• The committee system brings policy specialization on issues
• Committees understand existing statutes, details that need to be written, and estimates and decisions regarding the requirements of passage have to be made
• The committee process facilitates negotiation, where compromises can be arranged to the interest of all major affected
• Bills become law through skillful management in committees through the committees systems and on the floor

Committees and Healthcare Reform
What are the different types of committees and how do they affect healthcare reform? There are four types of committees: standing committees, joint committees, conference committees, and select committees. The committee definitions are as follows:

• Standing committees: standing committees were formed to handle bills in difference policy areas. The House and Senate have its own standing committees.
• Joint committees: joint committees exist a few policy areas with their membership drawn from the House and the Senate. They are used as means to achieve coordination in the House and the Senate.
• Conference committees: conference committees are formed when the Senate and the House pass a particular bill in different form. Its members are appointed through party leadership. This conference committee irons out the differences between Senate and House differences and report back with a compromise bill.
• Select committees: select committees are appointed for a specific purpose; it looks into specific issues like Watergate.
• Subcommittees: “subcommittees are responsible to, and work within the guidelines established by, their parent committees. In particular, standing committees usually create subcommittees with legislative jurisdiction to consider and report bills. They may assign their subcommittees such specific tasks as the initial consideration of measures and oversight of laws and programs in the subcommittees’ areas.”

Six key standing committees play a significant role in healthcare reform. These committees and their chairs are as follows:

• House Ways and Means Committee with Chair Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.)
• House Education and Labor Committee with Chair George Miller (D-Calif.)
• House Budget Committee with Chair John Spratt (D-S.C.)
• House Energy and Commerce Committee with Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)
• Senate Finance Committee with Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
• Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (H.E.L.P.) with Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.)
• Senate Budget Committee with Chair Kent Conrad (D-N.D.)

How can these six democratic chairs influence healthcare policy? According the CQ Today, the key standing committees in healthcare could affect healthcare reform through budget process by:

• Gearing up to play a leading role’ in health care reform, which will require them to ‘overcome years of policy deadlock
• Keeping their own committees in line
• Massage their leaders
• Deal with a GOP minority that wants its say and will probably oppose many ideas the Democrats try to push through
• Satisfy the Obama White House.

A Context for Understanding Committee Headlines
During healthcare reform, the media focuses on Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) or Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) because of their influence on their respective committees chair positions. Special interest groups will “lobby” committees during the legislative process, while opposing congressional members also attempt to influence healthcare reform in their own way. Now, when you read headlines about the Senate Finance or H.E.L.P. committees, you’ll have an understanding of the legislative context for the healthcare reform be discussed.

If this explanation of committees was too confusing, then check out this classic video of how an idea becomes a bill.

Update March 22, 2009:

Watch Rachel Maddow explain how the filibuster has changed the Senate process, altering Schoolhouse Rock’s light-hearted explanation of  “I’m Just a Bill.” More importantly, Maddow asks if it’s time to end the filibuster, since the Republicans political strategy is to obstruct everything by using this tactic.

Related Post:

• “The Role of Congress and its Legislative Process in Healthcare Reform”

Sources:

• The American Legislative Process: Congress and the States by Willam J. Keefe and Morris S.Ogul
• Government in America: People, Politics, and Policy by Lineberry, Edwards, and Wattenberg