The political process in this country is totally corrupt. The Senate passes health care reform strictly on party lines even though the majority of Americans are against it. Politicians do not care what us lowly peasants think, they know best. Welcome to Socialist America. Senators prostitute themselves for huge payoffs to their state, betraying their values. The restructuring of one sixth of the American economy is pushed through so fast as to have Senators voting on major legislation without even knowing what is in the 2000+ page bill. The devil is always in the details. Any wonder Congress’s approval ratings are in the teens?-Lou
Historic health-care overhaul clears Senate
Tough House-Senate bargaining ahead
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A sweeping White House-backed overhaul of the U.S. health-care system won hard-fought approval in the Senate on Thursday, delivering President Barack Obama a victory on his top domestic priority and setting the stage for tough negotiations on a final bill with the House of Representatives.
Senators voted 60-39 on the 10-year, $871 billion bill, the most wide-ranging piece of health-care legislation in a generation, which aims to extend health insurance to millions of Americans.
In a rare Christmas Eve session, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada invoked the name of late Sen. Edward Kennedy, a long-time health-reform advocate, and said the bill would improve the health-care system as well as cut the U.S. budget deficit.
“We will continue to build on this success, to improve our health system even more, and to further ease the terrible burdens on American families and businesses,” Reid said in remarks on the Senate floor Thursday morning. See how the U.S. health-care system compares to others around the world.
No Republicans voted for the bill. The GOP has criticized the measure at nearly every turn of the legislative process, calling it burdensome and even unconstitutional. Sen. Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, did not vote.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, vowed to stop the bill from becoming law.
“This fight is long from being over,” he said.
Obama’s hoping to sign a final bill before his State of the Union address in late January, and turn to other matters, including job creation and bank reform, as his party prepares for midterm elections.
Congressional Democrats must now work out a single version of the bill to send to Obama for his signature. There are some significant differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation but also many similarities.
Common features
Both measures require that most Americans have health insurance or pay penalties.
They also both force most employers to offer their workers health-care coverage; set up health-insurance “exchanges” — or marketplaces — where consumers and businesses will be able to shop for coverage; expand Medicaid for millions of Americans; bar insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions; and extend tax credits to poorer Americans to help them buy coverage.
Some features would take effect immediately, including prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. However, adults would have to wait until 2014 under the Senate bill.
Tax credits to help businesses with up to 25 workers buy insurance will also be available right away.
Others provisions are set to take effect later on.
The individual mandate kicks in under the Senate bill in 2014, as do the insurance exchanges. Both of those provisions are a year later than in the House’s version of the legislation.
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