(CNSNews.com) – One day after the Senate Finance Committee passed its version of health-care reform, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the health-care legislation under construction in both the House and Senate will ultimately need to go to a conference committee to work out the differences between the versions of the bill crafted in each chamber. That process will prolong congressional consideration of the bill and give the public more time to analyze what Congress is drafting.

Previously, Hoyer told CNSNews.com that he would not rule out the possibility that the House would vote on the Senate bill without amending it, allowing it to go straight to the president for his signature.
 
“We’re going to have to go to conference, and what differences we have, we’ll have to resolve,” Hoyer said Wednesday at his weekly news conference.
 
CNSNews.com reported last week that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would try to fast-track the process by sending the Senate health-care bill, if approved, to the House in the form of language inserted into a bill (HR 1586) that the House passed in March. HR 1586 imposes a 90 percent tax on bonuses paid to workers at AIG and other companies that received $5 billion or more in bailout money. 

The Senate needs to attach its health care bill to a revenue bill that has already passed the House because the Senate health care bill raises taxes and the Constitution requires all revenue bills to originate in the House.

However, attaching the Senate health care bill to HR 1586, which has already been approved by the House, also leaves open the possibility that the House could approve the version that the Senate sent back without changing it, and send it directly to the president for his signature--bypassing the need for a conference commiittee that would reconcile House and Senate versions of the legislation, prolong the process, and require an additional round of votes in both chambers.

When asked last week whether the House might vote on the Senate health care bill without changing it and then send it directly to the president if it came back to the House in the shell of HR 1586, Hoyer said it would depend on the substance of the Senate health care plan. 

“I won’t rule it out or in because I don’t know what the package is,” Hoyer said.

But at Wednesday's news conference, CNSNews.com asked Hoyer, if Reid does use H.R. 1586 as a shell, “Will you make certain House members such as Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) have a chance to offer amendments to that bill, or are you still open to the possibility of voting on a Senate bill unchanged so it can be sent to the president without going back through a conference committee?”

“Given the differences between the House and the Senate, particularly the significant differences that we perceive in terms of making affordable health care for the overwhelming majority of citizens, and the numbers that we include within the system, I would be shocked if we don’t go to conference and try to hash out the differences between the House and the Senate,” Hoyer said.