The House is to vote tonight on the Senate-passed six-month fix for Medicare payments to doctors.
"What we're looking at now is taking up the short-term [payment fix]," said House Speaker Pelosi. The Senate passed its version separately last week after a broader "extenders" bill that had included it got bogged down.
The Senate bill will be taken up by the House under suspension, now that the House has just completed floor action on a campaign-finance bill, the DISCLOSE Act.
After debate on the "doc-fix" bill, the House will debate a conference report on Iran sanctions and then take votes on both measures along with other pending bills under suspension.
During her weekly news conference, Pelosi said the decision to move on the sustainable growth rate issue was in part so "we can clear the way for discussing a bigger package for SGR and unemployment insurance and the rest."
She added that "what we had hoped to do was send it back to them with unemployment insurance and the rest, but it's clear that at this time they can't pass that."
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