Health care overhaul faces stone wall in Senate
The Associated Press
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Published: November 8, 2009
WASHINGTON -- The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate.
Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and "take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people."
The problem is that the Senate won't run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate.
If a government plan is part of the deal, "as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote," said
Sen. Joe Lieberman, the
Connecticut independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome
GOP filibusters.
"The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate,"
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.
Democrats did not line up to challenge him. Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has yet to schedule floor debate and hinted last week that senators may not be able to finish health care this year.
Nonetheless, the House vote provided an important lesson in how to succeed with less-than-perfect party unity, and one that Senate Democrats may be able to adapt. House Democrats overcame their own divisions and broke an impasse that threatened the bill after liberals grudgingly accepted tougher restrictions on abortion funding, as abortion opponents demanded.
In Senate, the stumbling block is the idea of the government competing with private insurers. Liberals may have to swallow hard and accept a deal without a public plan in order to keep the legislation alive. As in the House, the compromise appears to be to the right of the political spectrum.
Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of
Maine, who voted for a version of the Senate bill in committee, has given the Democrats a possible way out. She's proposing to allow a government plan as a last resort, if after a few years premiums keep escalating and local health insurance markets remain in the grip of a few big companies. This is the "trigger" option.
That approach appeals to moderates such as
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. "If the private market fails to reform, there would be a fallback position," Landrieu said last week. "It should be triggered by choice and affordability, not by political whim."
Lieberman said he opposes the public plan because it could become a huge and costly entitlement program. "I believe the debt can break
America and send us into a recession that's worse than the one we're fighting our way out of today," he said.
For now, Reid is trying to find the votes for a different approach: a government plan that states could opt out of.
The Senate is not likely to jump ahead this week on health care. Reid will keep meeting with senators to see if he can work out a political formula that will give him not only the 60 votes needed to begin debate, but the 60 needed to shut off discussion and bring the bill to a final vote.
Toward the end of the week, the
Congressional Budget Office may report back with a costs and coverage estimate on Reid's bill, which he assembled from legislation passed by the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The Finance Committee version does not include a government plan.
Reid has pledged to Obama that he will get the bill done by the end of the year and remains committed to doing that, according to a Senate leadership aide.
Both the House and Senate bills gradually would extend coverage to nearly all Americans by providing government subsidies to help pay premiums. The measures would bar insurers' practices such as charging more to those in poor health or denying them coverage altogether.
All Americans would be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government plan or by purchasing it on their own.
To keep down costs, the government subsidies and consumer protections don't take effect until 2013. During the three-year transition, both bills would provide $5 billion in federal dollars to help get coverage for people with medical problems who are turned down by private insurers.
Both House and Senate would expand significantly the federal-state
Medicaid health program for low-income people.
The majority of people with employer-provided health insurance would not see changes. The main beneficiaries would be some 30 million people who have no coverage at work or have to buy it on their own. The legislation would create a federally regulated marketplace where they could shop for coverage.
The are several major differences between the bills.
-The House would require employers to provide coverage; the Senate does not.
-The House would pay for the coverage expansion by raising taxes on upper-income earners; the Senate uses a variety of taxes and fees, including a levy on high-cost insurance plans.
-The House plan costs about $1.2 trillion over 10 years; the Senate version is under $900 billion.
By defusing the abortion issue - at least for now - the House may have helped the long-term prospects for the bill. Catholic bishops also eager to expand society's safety net may yet endorse the final legislation.
Lieberman appeared on "
Fox News Sunday," while Graham was
CBS' "Face the Nation."
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It's a great day in America unless you're a selfish Republican.
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45,000 people die each year in the greatest nation on earth for lack of health care.
People who get insurance through their employers have no say in the polices provided to them.
Insurance companies have in-network deductible, and out-of-pocket-in-network-out-of pocket capscap, an out-of network deductible and an out- of network-out of-pocket cap. Usually totals $15,000-20,000. Prescriptions don't count towards either in most policies.
Basically, pay us each month then pay for your services.
60% of all bankruptcies each year are caused by medical expenses, 70% of them have insurance.
So if you think people need to get a job and not be able to negotiate their insurance, great but don't get sick cause you'll still be screwed.
And for every exaggerated, nightmare story spewed on Fux News about single-payer, 1,000 Americans dies from our system.
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I hope the big oil companies will take responsibility for themselves in the future and stop accepting over 10 billion a year in government subsidies.
That's some of what you're talking about, right?
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You say our health care costs a little more? YOu mean it's double. That's what you call a little more.
This health care bill that the house just passed or some version thereof, will save our economy in the future. That's not counting all the other benefits. YOur problem, like all Republicans, is you can't get beyond your own selfishness long enough to look at it objectively. Are you another one of these Oklahoma Christians who profess to live by the Bible?
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I was stopping at least twice a week at Earl's Ribs on Western for smoked turkey breast. On Saturday night I learned I will not return to Earls anytime soon. Laquicha decided to be rude and treat me like dirt. Thanks Laquicha , you just lost a loyal customer.
The lesson is: bribery, vote-buying, arm-twisting, and outright intimdation work.
---For now, Reid is trying to find the votes for a different approach: a government plan that states could opt out of.---
This is intellectually dishonest. If the states "opt out" of the public plan, then their premiums would go through the roof. This is merely cover to buy votes from key senators.
The problem with the health care bill is not that we don't need reform, it's that this bill uses phony and dishonest accounting, plus is loaded with strings, payoffs, and exemptions in a shameless attempts to buy votes.
Paying for insurance each month and then getting cancer and your insurance drops you because you had acne as a teen, that should make you nervous.