Democrats were refining plans to use something called a "self-executing rule" to pass the bill approved by the Senate last December 24 on a party-line vote. The House must pass that bill, as is, for Obamacare to become law. But since the bill contains the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid, and other special deals, House Democrats are wary -- no, terrified -- of voting for it, even if they pass a separate bill "fixing" the Senate bill's problems. That's where the self-executing rule -- sometimes called the "Slaughter solution" or the "Slaughter sleight-of-hand," after House Rules Committee chairwoman Louise Slaughter -- comes in.
Whenever a bill goes to the house floor for debate and a vote, the Rules Committee is required to write, and the House must pass, a rule setting the terms of debate: how many amendments will be offered, how long debate will run, etc. The rule is normally a limited measure that applies only to the particular bill in question. And it covers only the process; the bill itself is passed separately. But it is possible for the Rules Committee to put in language stipulating that if the rule is passed, then a separate, unconnected piece of legislation will also be considered, or "deemed," to have passed. "It embodies a 'two-for-one' procedure," says a 2006 Congressional Research Service report on self-executing rules. "This means that when the House adopts a rule it also simultaneously agrees to dispose of a separate matter, which is specified in the rule itself."
Using the self-executing rule strategy, Democrats could conceivably pass the rule, the Senate bill, and the House reconciliation "fixes" to the Senate bill all in one vote, without a single House member voting for any specific health care measure.