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Senate Finance Committee Approves Health Care Bill 14-9
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SumOfAllFears Offline
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Senate Finance Committee Approves Health Care Bill 14-9
Senate Finance Committee Approves Health Care Bill 14-9

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 11:58 AM


WASHINGTON – With support from a lone Republican, a key Senate committee Tuesday approved a middle-of-the-road health care plan that moves President Barack Obama's goal of wider and affordable coverage a giant step closer to becoming law.

[Image: snowehealthcarefinal.jpg]
Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who said she would vote for the heathcare bill in the Democrat-controlled Senate Finance Committee Tuesday, is likely the only GOP vote for the bill. The legislation that passed the other House and Senate committees did so without a single Republican vote. (AP Photo)

Maine Republican Olympia Snowe said she was laying aside misgivings for now and voting to advance the bill, a sweeping $829-billon, 10-year health care remake that would help most Americans get coverage without creating a new government insurance plan. "When history calls, history calls," said Snowe.


Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., called his bill "a commonsense, balanced solution." A distance runner, Baucus has endured months of marathon meetings to get this far. It's not the finish line.


Health care legislation is expected to be on the Senate floor the week after next, said a spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. But it won't be the Baucus bill. Reid will combine the Finance version with a more liberal proposal from the health committee — with unpredictable results.


The vote in the Finance Committee was 14-9, with Snowe joining all 13 Democrats in support. In a sign of long political battles ahead, every other Republican voted against it.


The ultimate fate of the legislation hinges on how lawmakers decide dozens of unresolved issues, from letting government sell insurance to abortion coverage. Even some senators who voted for the Baucus bill said they have concerns it will deliver on providing access to affordable coverage for all.


As Snowe made clear, "My vote today is my vote today. It doesn't forecast what my vote will be tomorrow."


The Baucus plan would, for the first time, require most Americans to purchase insurance and it also aims to hold down spiraling medical costs over the long term. Questions persist about whether it would truly provide access to affordable coverage, particularly for self employed people with solid middle class incomes.


The Finance Committee's top Republican, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, gave voice to the GOP's concerns about the bill, saying it was "moving on a slippery slope to more and more government control of health care."


"There's a lot in this bill that's just a consensus that needs to be done, but there are other provisions of this bill that raise a lot of questions," Grassley said, contending the legislation would mean higher costs for Americans.


The committee approval marked a personal victory for Baucus. Four other congressional committees finished their work before August, and for months all eyes had been on the Finance panel, whose moderate makeup most closely resembles the Senate as a whole.


Snowe kept Washington guessing about how she would vote until she announced it late in the debate Tuesday. Democrats, aware that Snowe could be the only Republican in Congress to vote for their health care overhaul, have spent months addressing her concerns about making coverage affordable and how to pay for it.


The committee's centrist legislation is also seen as the best building block for a compromise plan that could find favor on the Senate floor.


One of the biggest unanswered questions is whether the legislation would slow punishing increases in the nation's health care costs, particularly for the majority who now have coverage through employers. The insurance industry insists it would shift new costs onto those who have coverage.


Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf, under questioning by Republican senators, acknowledged that the bill's total impact on the nation's health care costs is still unknown. The CBO has been able to establish that the legislation would reduce federal government deficits, but Elmendorf said his staff has not had time to evaluate its effects on privately insured people. Government programs pay about half the nation's annual $2.5 trillion health care tab.


Once the Finance Committee has acted, the dealmaking can begin in earnest with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., working with White House staff, Baucus and others to blend the Finance bill with a more liberal version passed by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.


Baucus' bill includes consumer protections such as limits on copays and deductibles and relies on federal subsidies to help lower-income families purchase coverage. Insurance companies would have to take all comers, and people could shop for insurance within new state marketplaces called exchanges.


Medicaid would be expanded, and though employers wouldn't be required to cover their workers, they'd have to pay a penalty for each employee who sought insurance with government subsidies. The bill is paid for by cuts to Medicare providers and new taxes on insurance companies and others.


Unlike the other health care bills in Congress, Baucus' would not allow the government to sell insurance in competition with private companies, a divisive element sought by liberals.


Last-minute changes made subsidies more generous and softened the penalties for those who don't comply with a proposed new mandate for everyone to buy insurance. The latter change drew the ire of the health insurance industry, which said that without a strong and enforceable requirement, not enough people would get insured and premiums would jump for everyone else.


A major question mark for Reid's negotiations is whether he will include some version of a so-called public plan in the merged bill. Across the Capitol, House Democratic leaders are working to finalize their bill, which does contain a public plan, and floor action is expected in both chambers in coming weeks. If passed, the legislation would then go to a conference committee to reconcile differences.


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Obama Praises Snowe for 'Diligent' Healthcare Vote

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 2:25 PM

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is praising Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe for being "extraordinarily diligent" in working with Democrats on health care reform.

Snowe says she will vote Tuesday for a Democratic health care bill. Passage of the Senate Finance Committee's bill is a foregone conclusion, but Snowe's bipartisan support is a significant boost for Obama's top legislative priority.

Obama says the finance committee has done "excellent work" in drafting a bill, and called the likely vote "another step forward" toward achieving health care reform.

2009 Associated Press

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Unions Will Oppose Baucus Bill Unless It's Changed

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 2:40 PM

WASHINGTON -- A top labor lobbyist says about 30 unions will run a full-page ad in newspapers Wednesday announcing their opposition to the Senate Finance Committee's health overhaul bill.

The ad says that unless the bill brought to the Senate floor makes substantial progress to address the concerns of working men and women, unions will oppose it.

The legislative director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Chuck Loveless, says unions are unhappy that the legislation lacks a publicly run insurance plan and would tax insurers that provide expensive coverage.

Sponsors included the AFL-CIO and the Communications Workers of America. The ad will run in The Washington Post, USA Today and Capitol Hill newspapers.


2009 Associated Press

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Report: Family Insurance Doubles with Obamacare

Monday, October 12, 2009 2:30 PM

By: Theodore Kettle
The Obama White House immediately tried to discredit a new PriceWaterhouseCoopers study on the costs of the health care reform bill being voted on Tuesday by the Senate Finance Committee – and with obvious reason.

Newsmax obtained a copy of the devastating report. In its section entitled “Potential Impact of Health Reform on the Cost of Private Health Insurance Coverage,” the prestigious independent accounting firm warns of “new taxes on health sector entities that are likely to be passed through to consumers.”


It noted that the current cost of the average family’s coverage is about $12,300. But under the Obamacare bill set to be voted on, that would increase to approximately:

$17,200 by the year 2013.

$21,300 by the year 2016.

$25,900 by the year 2019.

The report warns that “the cost of family coverage is expected to increase by $4,000 more than it would under the current system.” It adds that “This amounts to an additional 18 percent increase in the cost of health insurance coverage by 2019.”

The White House’s panicked response has been to make a dubious challenge to PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ competence. “Those guys specialize in tax shelters,” Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, told the Washington Post. “Clearly this is not their area of expertise.”

Going back to the boisterous town hall meetings of the summer, the White House’s biggest problem in selling Obamacare has been that so many Americans are pleased with the health insurance coverage they now have.

If families now find out Obamacare means they’ll be paying over $25,000 for health care within a decade, President Obama’s main campaign promise could soon come to a screeching halt.

2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
(This post was last modified: 10-13-2009 02:44 PM by SumOfAllFears.)
10-13-2009 02:32 PM
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Owl 69/70/75 Offline
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RE: Senate Finance Committee Approves Health Care Bill 14-9
This approach will do more harm than good, but not as much harm as the house bills (any of them).
10-13-2009 02:45 PM
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DrTorch Offline
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RE: Senate Finance Committee Approves Health Care Bill 14-9
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...38232.html

Quote:Paying the Health Tax in Massachusetts Be warned: Even people with good insurance will risk fines if mandatory insurance becomes the national law.

But here's the kicker. You want to know what's wrong w/ the country? This sums up a lot

Quote:Mr. Romney and Sen. Ted Kennedy publicly promised that the middle class—that is, people like us—would not be taxed and that our health-care costs would actually decrease if the plan became law.

My husband and I weren't convinced. It all seemed inane, but we are neither politically or socially conservative and figured the plan wouldn't affect us much.

So, since it wouldn't affect them, they weren't concerned. Besides, it may affect "those conservatives" and that made it even better.

Spite, envy, bigotry, theft. It's all here.
10-13-2009 03:00 PM
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BlazerFan11 Offline
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Post: #4
RE: Senate Finance Committee Approves Health Care Bill 14-9
Quote:The White House’s panicked response has been to make a dubious challenge to PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ competence. “Those guys specialize in tax shelters,” Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, told the Washington Post. “Clearly this is not their area of expertise.”

What a fuggin' idiot. PwC is the world's largest audit and advisory firm, and analyzing cost is not their area of expertise? I hope they sue her dumb @$$ for slander until she's penniless.
10-13-2009 03:01 PM
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