The package is the product of hard-fought negotiations and will give Democrats a chance to achieve key policy goals ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
Once the legislation passes the Senate, it must be approved by the House of Representatives before President Joe Biden can sign it into law. The House is set to come back to take up the legislation this Friday, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office.
However, passing a bill through the reconciliation process requires compliance with a strict set of package budget rules. Republicans use vote-a-rama to get politically tough votes by putting Democrats on the spot.
As expected, key insulin provisions were dropped from the bill after Republicans raised a point of order, resulting in a vote to remove them.
The final vote was 57-43. 60 votes are needed to sustain the arrangement.
Provisions initially included in the bill would limit insulin prices to $35 per month in both the private insurance market and Medicare. But a Senate lawmaker ruled that the cap on insulin in the private insurance market doesn’t comply with the reconciliation rules Democrats are using to push their legislation through the chamber.
Democrats kept both provisions in the bill anyway, but Republicans raised a point of order to vote to strike the provisions only from the private market. Medicare’s $35 insulin cap remains the same.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats were hoping to make some late changes to tax provisions in the bill before the chamber expected to vote on the package Sunday afternoon, according to West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin. It’s unclear what is being discussed or how significant the changes will be. Manchin suggested that Democrats could offer an amendment on the floor to reflect these changes.
This story has been updated with additional updates.
CNN’s Manu Raju and Christine Wilson contributed to this report.
