Constitution Rips The Health Care Bill

Article 1, Section 7 of the US constitution says that in order for a bill to "become law" it must "have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate." Thus, unless a bill is passed in both the house and senate it cannot be presented to the president.

Now the constitution also says that the bill cannot be deemed to be an enactment of another.

The Heritage Foundation has exposed the plan to pass this bill in Washington:

[Here’s the idea: (1) pass a rule to bring to the floor a “reconciliation” measure that would detoxify certain provisions in the Senate-passed health-reform bill, and (2) insert in the rule a sentence that “deems” the Senate bill to have passed the House.]

BUT if you look at what the constitution says about a bill being deemed an enactment of another, this plan is unconstitutional. This bill cannot go through without violating the constitution

For the "Slaughter Rule" to pass the House would pass the senate bill adding amendments to it. The senate would then vote on that amendatory bill only. Thus no single bill would pass both houses, but instead two variations of a bill.

Heritage also pointed out that in 1998 in Clinton v. NYC the supreme court ruled that, a bill containing the “exact text” must be approved by one house; the other house must approve “precisely the same text.”

Therefore the Slaughter Rule, which would allow the house to pass the senate and the senate to vote on the amended bill would be breaking that law as they do not contain the exact same text.