It’s interesting that they didn’t get it in writing and leaked it to the DC publication Roll Call instead of forcing a statement into the open.

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said.

This would disrupt the strategy to act on reconciliation before passing the full health care bill. The House simply does not trust the Senate to get the job done, and members also don’t want to have to take a vote on the Senate bill and its various distasteful deals. The idea before was to make a “self-executing” rule where the House would pass the reconciliation sidecar and “assume the Senate bill to have passed. According to these GOP sources, the Parliamentarian said they cannot do that.

There are still options to ensure the reconciliation changes. The President could wait on the signage of the bills until a reconciliation package is introduced, for example. And Harry Reid’s letter to Mitch McConnell would at least signal the Senate’s determination, reassuring House members. But they may still have to take a hard swallow on that Senate bill, although Republicans facing them in November would probably just lie and say they voted for all manner of nonsense regardless of what they do. Really that should not be a concern to any politician, what other people might put in a campaign ad.

Again, we have no way of knowing if this is true. You have unnamed GOP sources claiming that the Parliamentarian told them something verbally. A Senate Democratic leadership aide offered no comment on this. Nobody’s really talking publicly or on the record. So until then, I’d view this with skepticism.

The road to passage actually got even tougher today. More about that in my next post…