Washington – Senate Democrats passed a landmark health care bill early Thursday morning that could define President Barack Obama’s legacy and usher in near-universal medical coverage for the first time in U.S. history.
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Ahead lie complex talks with the House to reach final legislation in the new year.
Just before the vote Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said “We stand on the doorstep of history. We recognize that, but much more importantly, we stand so close to making so many individual lives better.”
The vote Thursday on the bill extending health care coverage to some 31 million uninsured Americans brings Obama’s closer to achieving his top domestic priority. The White House and Congress have now come farther toward the goal of a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. health care system than any of their predecessors.
But the final step may be the hardest: reconciling the Senate bill with a significantly different version already approved in November by the House of Representatives.
A compromise would have to be approved by both chambers — and could collapse if Obama loses the support of any Democrat in the Senate or a handful in the House.
After 24 consecutive days of debate — the Senate’s second-longest such stretch ever — passage of the Democrats’ 10-year, nearly $1 trillion bill is all but inevitable Thursday. It was the Senate’s first vote on the day of Christmas Eve since 1895, when the matter at hand was a military affairs bill concerning employment of former Confederate officers, according to the Senate Historical Office.
Democrats have demonstrated their hard-won unity by clearing three 60-vote procedural hurdles this week, the last one Wednesday afternoon, with all 58 Democrats and two independents holding together against unanimous Republican opposition.
“We will always remember this day,” said Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
Video: Obama offers his praise
Negotiations with the House probably will stretch into February, but though the two chambers differ on tricky issues like abortion and the reach of government into the health system, Democrats say they’ve come too far to fail now.
The Senate measure, in addition to extending coverage to millions of people who lack it, will also ban the insurance industry from denying benefits or charging higher premiums on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. The Congressional Budget Office predicts the bill will reduce deficits by $130 billion over the next 10 years, an estimate that assumes lawmakers carry through on hundreds of billions of dollars in planned cuts to insurance companies and doctors, hospitals and others who treat Medicare patients.
For the first time the government would require nearly every American to carry insurance, and subsidies would be provided to help low-income people do so. Employers would be induced to cover their employees through a combination of tax credits and penalties.
Unlike the House, the Senate measure omits a government-run insurance option, which liberals favored to apply pressure on private insurers but Democratic moderates opposed as an unwarranted federal intrusion.
In an interview with PBS, Obama signaled he would sign a bill even if it lacks the provision.
“Would I like one of those options to be the public option? Yes. Do I think that it makes sense, as some have argued, that, without the public option, we dump all these other extraordinary reforms and we say to the 30 million people who don’t have coverage: ‘You know, sorry. We didn’t get exactly what we wanted?’ I don’t think that makes sense,” Obama said.
Outnumbered Senate Republicans stubbornly played out a losing hand. They launched several last-minute constitutional challenges that Democrats swatted aside, then rejected calls to move the final vote up a day in deference to a snowstorm that threatened to prevent lawmakers from reaching home on Christmas Eve.
Republicans took to the floor to lambaste the bill as a budget-busting government takeover. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, contended that it “just might wind up being the most widely hated legislation of the decade.”
OY VEI!!!!
This is truly an historical event. Our country is taking a step in the right direction!
Obama got his xmas gift at our expense. But as long as the messiah is happy…
So now the govt is going to force us to buy health insurance, that will most probably be similar to all the other insurances where they dictate what is covered or not covered.
I thought I lived in the US, not in a communist country.
I’m moving to……
This day will be rememberd as one of the worse days in the USA history.
b.h good
Note – there is no “government coverage”. It is just a bill to make it mandatory:
1. For every person to have private health insurance (whether they want it or not)
2. For every person who truly cannot afford to pay for private health insurance, to have some of the cost subsidized by the government, depending on how poor they are.
3. For the private insurance companies to accept every person who applies – even if they have a pre-existing condition (and not to charge more because of it).
So the “everyday person” loses 3 ways:
1. Even if you didn’t want to have it – you are required by law to pay for health insurance. Whether your employer chooses to pay part of that cost is up to them, not you. This will cost many people money.
2. If you are genuinely poor (on assistance, etc) then part or all of the cost will be subsidized. Most people are not below the povery line, and if you make $44,000 or above (family of 4) you do not get any subsidy at all. This will cost many people money.
3. If you have insurance, your premiums will go up dramatically – as the company will have to charge the same for everyone – healthy or sick. So you subsidize the sick.
We all lose !
As a physician please note;
This will effectively emasculate medical care in this country as we know it. Might as well move back to Europe! You will find more and more HIGH QUALITY doctors accepting less and less insurance (especially Medicare) which means either you fork over cash/credit card or suffer with less qualified and erudite care.
Good luck-
BTW, I am retiring!
Truly an historical event; when the word came about 45 minutes ago just as we were finishing davening shachrit, our rav circled back and asked that we say a chatzi- hallel in recognition of the great miracle that the ebeshter had brought us this morning. What a historic day for the greatest country in the world. And kol hakovod to Obama, Reid and Palosi for showing the leadership to allow us to reach this day.
It’s the worst of both worlds:
* Everyone will be forced by law to get private insurance, and to pay for it. Those who cannot afford it, will have some of the cost subsidized, and paid for by everyone else.
So how do we gain from this? Unless you are on welfare (and you get a huge gift of free or cheap private insurance), all that happens to you is that your taxes go up, and you get a fine if you don’t choose to (or can’t afford) to buy private insurance.
Note the the Democrats call “being able to afford private insurance” as a $44,000 income for a family of 4. That’s insane even for non-jews. Frum jews can barely pay for jewish school – let alone a new cost of $10,000-18,000 for health insurance (if their employer won’t cover it for them).
* There is no government-run insurance or “public option” like in Europe or Canada – so nobody gets free healthcare, and the private insurance companies still have no competition or incentive to lower their rates.
Nobody gains from this, since the private insurance companies can raise their premiums to whatever they want, and you are obligated by law to have a policy with someone…
What stupidty – better not to have a bill at all
It’s really interesting that about half of VIN commenters support the bill and half oppose it. Each of them are vehement in their positions. But I really wonder what differentiates the two sides. Is it education, wealth, frumkeit level, or just which shaygetz they listen to on the radio?
Even though this is a step in the right direction, I question the wisdom of forcing people to buy insurance. What happens when the insurance denies that you require the treatment the doctor recommended? What happens then?
And besides, there is a much simpler solution. Have BOTH options. What’s wrong with having both public health AND private health?
Just like there are public schools AND private schools?
It works in Australia…. one of the richest countries.. and one of the highest life expectancies… why can’t such a system work in the USA?
But this policy of requiring everyone to purchase insurance is clearly a dream come true for insurance companies. It’s like requiring everyone to send their kids to private school. Clearly the low income earners will be the losers on this deal.
But on the other hand at least the uninsurable finally can get insurance, but it does seem to be a bill pandering to special interest groups. Not perfect, but better than nothing.
I must say it’s a really incredible bill,full of pork barrell treats.Ried truly showed with his horsetrading and comments why his voters in nevada are fed up with him.If anyone in private life would pull off such deals,he would wound up in jail.It’s legal thievery.
another step closer to becoming a state of the oh so wonderful EU.
Why are the politicians pushing for a bill that the majority of the country is against?
To # 19: It is true that many people are suffering because they do not have health care — and we need to help them, etc. But what gives the government the right to take food out of my children’s mouths so others can have health insurance? This is stealing!!!
im from canada may g-d bless you all. how much did he pay them off to get their vote.
Today is truly a yuntif. Because of my pre-existing condition I’ve been unable to get insurance for almost 20 years. I almost never see a doctor and when I did, for a skin condition, I was not elligable for the 50% insurance company discount. I paid my bills in FULL and I paid double what the insurance company would have had to pay. These days when the skin condition returns I mamish have to remove the skin myself to save the doctors bills.
It was very painful to listen to so many Yidden who get their insurance company propoganda from Rush-a Limbo speak out against the presidents plan.
Let me ask you a question, if all this bill allegedly does is send 30 million people into the arms of the insurance companies, why did they fight so hard to try and sink it?
I have a simple question… Can someone point me to one governement program that a) worked and b) reduced cost…
Ahh silence….
Medicare in fact has not worked… What Medicare has done is helped raise the cost of healthcare for the rest of us. Medicare reimburses doctors and hospitals below costs.
One might ask so how then do healthcare businesses stay in business?
The answer is by charging non-medicare and medicaid patients more.
Each piece of legislation passed by government only increases the cost to the consumer. Eventually everyone will enrol in the cheaper government program instead of buying their own insurance. Sustainable… I think not!
I know of one hospital system which made $130 Million last year. When they went back and recosted their patients as if they were Medicare patients and reimburses at the Medicare rates they would have lost 250 million!
So pray tell how are they going to stay in business and provide us with quality timely care?
Ignorance is bliss!
You people are excited and happy about something you nor your senator read and are saying it will be good. Just like the medicine your doctor perscribes and the pharmacist does not give you the literature stating the side effects and then you get sicker. Many of you who are takers, some rightfully so, have become very greedy at taxpayers expense. Be careful, you are not seeing the handwriting on the wall.
With this new plan, if Chas V’Shalom it will ever go through for real….i think many of you should settle your after 120 year needs !!
About Medicare… it is a disaster. The goal is to have the old people just die out. Yes, some of these elderly are forced to go to several pharmacies to get their medications filled. Some have B”H children who take care of these needs and for those who don’t nebbach! Medicare just decided not to cover one of our mother’s medications because she lives at home!
I looked up your source and this the review of the book the article sites as its source. Your whole proof is based on manipulation of the figures. Everything you claim is based on false information. I’ll stick with the CIA factbook among others as valid proof.
“Be aware that one of the most surprising conclusions in the book – that the U.S. healthcare system, when you take away injuries and accidents, actually has the best life expectancy in the world – is based on a very clever twist of the underlying data.
Instead of looking at real-world life expectancy and then taking away deaths due to injury and accident (a method that puts the U.S. at 17th) Mr. Ohsfeldt uses an equation that begins with an ESTIMATE of life expectancy BASED ON GDP PER CAPITA (a measure of how rich the country is), not on actual real-world data. Then he adjusts for injuries and accidents. Of course the U.S. remains at the top of the list, as we are one of the richest countries in the world.
Here’s his equation, from the book:
LifeExpit = 50.78 + 3.020 * log(GDPPCit) – 0.077 * [mean(Trans)]
– 0.137 * [mean(Falls)] – 0.133 * [mean(Homicide)]
– 0.0326 * [mean(Suicide)] + year-effectsit
The equation includes “log(GDPPCit)”, which is GDP per capita in country i, year t, and it includes factors for transportation accidents, falls, homicide, and suicide. Mr. Ohsfeldt suggests in his writing that the equation and graph are based on real world life expectancy data, which figure into the equation nowhere at all.
I find it deceptive.”