The biggest hurdles facing the bipartisan infrastructure bill

Chris Meekins, Healthcare Policy Research Analyst at Raymond James, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the biggest hurdles in the bipartisanship.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Budget negotiations are ongoing as Democrats right now are hoping to spend big on both infrastructure, health care, and more. We're joined now by Chris Meekins, Health Care Policy Research Analyst at Raymond James. Chris, always great having you here with us.

So let's just start with the bipartisanship in the budget negotiations, because we're seeing a lot of tensions really increase over that infrastructure package, which is separate but still in some measure tied to that budget deal. What do you see as some of the biggest hurdles to that bipartisanship, at least when it comes to the budget?

CHRIS MEEKINS: Yeah, I think what we see is you've got a group of Republican senators that want to work together, want to have a bipartisan package. You have a President Biden who says he wants bipartisanship. But they don't-- Democrats do not want this to drag on forever, right? So you already had Speaker Pelosi earlier this year saying they wanted to get a budget done by July 4 and get a reconciliation bill done before the August recess.

Well, July 4 is far in the rearview mirror, and we still don't have sights on when a reconciliation bill could get done. So what they really are trying to do is force a vote today, this afternoon, which is unlikely to pass. But just moments ago, Republican Senator Rob Portman, with 11 Republicans-- so enough to help you get the 60 if all Democrats vote for it-- say they'll have a bill, and they'll be ready to vote on Monday to proceed with this bipartisan infrastructure bill.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: So, Chris, I know that Senator Portman, the lead negotiator here, the Republican from Ohio, coming out today and saying they still have four or five issues that they need to discuss with the White House before they bring this infrastructure bill to a vote. Can you just-- I know your area is really health care, but you sort of have your finger on the pulse of what's happening there in Washington, Chris. What are some of the sticking coins left over?

CHRIS MEEKINS: Yeah. At the end of the day, it's all about where they're going to get the money from to offset some of the spending, right? So there was a big fight over whether or not we could just spend more at the IRS, which Republicans, with the history of going after, in their view, the Tea Party and a lot of other actions were not really gung ho about spending more at the IRS, with the idea you can then help collect more of these unpaid taxes that are out there at this point in time.

So they had to come up with other agreements on how to pay for it, which is really what we come down to. One of the things they're looking at it within health care itself-- the Trump administration did this big action on drug rebates that would have actually cost the government more than $180 billion. Well, Democrats want to use that $180 billion by repealing this rule that the courts will likely strike down any way for a permanent package.

However, Republicans now are like, well, let's just delay it a couple of years and get 60 or $80 billion. So it really all comes down to what spending are they going to offset in this, and can they reach agreement there? But with Senator Portman's letter just moments ago that he sent Majority Leader Schumer, I think we're really close despite what's going to happen in the vote today of them getting something-- be able to advance something at the beginning of next week.