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Senior Citizen Politics
House Hands Health Care Challenge Off To Senate
Which Faces Christmas Deadline
Public option in a House bill is opposed by a handful
of moderate Senate Democrats, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent
backed by insurance
By Liz
Halloran, NPR News
 Nov. 9, 2009 - Democrats have little time to savor
the narrow passage of their historic heath care overhaul in the House of
Representatives as attention turns to the deeply divided U.S. Senate.
Majority Leader Harry Reid's challenge is to corral enough votes to
bring a companion bill to the floor of his chamber before a White
House-imposed Christmas deadline.
The Nevada Democrat, facing a tough re-election
back home, threw Senate negotiations into turmoil recently when he
embraced a public insurance option.
The option is a key component of the newly minted
House bill, but is opposed by a handful of moderate Senate Democrats, as
well as Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent.
And Reid needs the support of all 58 Senate
Democrats, as well as Lieberman and fellow independent Sen. Bernie
Sanders of Vermont, to secure the 60 votes necessary to block a
Republican filibuster.
Reid has said that the public insurance option he
supports would allow states to opt out of the program. An analysis of
the cost of the proposed Senate plans by the nonpartisan Congressional
Budget Office is expected later this week.
The House has proposed paying for its plan by
increasing taxes on wealthy Americans. The Senate versions have favored
taxing generous insurance benefit plans — anathema to union members, and
opposed by House leaders.
Reid must first reconcile two competing Senate
health care bills in the weeks ahead before moving to a vote. Then the
House bill and any health care legislation from the Senate would have to
be merged by a joint congressional committee before being sent to
President Obama for his signature.
Reid avoided any promises about Senate action. In a
statement released after the House vote, he said, "We realize the strong
will for reform that exists, and we are energized that we stand closer
than ever to reforming our broken health insurance system."
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Democrats Celebrate
On the House floor, announcement of the 220-215
vote was greeted by wild applause from the Democratic side of the aisle.
Afterward, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a Democrat from Rhode Island, invoked
his recently deceased father. During his four decades in the Senate,
Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy made health care reform his life's
work.
"My dad was a senator," Kennedy said, "but tonight
his spirit was in the House."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to
preside over the House, managed to overcome the defection of 39
Democrats to the "no" column and attract a lone Republican to give her
just two more votes than the 218 she needed to get the overhaul
legislation passed — and to hand the president a big win for his top
domestic priority.
"I thank the president for his tremendous
leadership, because without President Obama in the White House, this
victory would not have been possible," Pelosi said at a press conference
immediately after the vote.
"He provided the vision and the momentum for us to
get the job done for the American people," she said.
In a brief appearance Sunday afternoon at the White
House, Obama said he was grateful for "courageous" legislators who voted
for the House overhaul given "the heated and often misleading rhetoric
around this legislation."
"Now it falls on the United States Senate," he
said, to deliver the "change we promised to the American people."
"I am absolutely confident it will," he said in an
earlier statement, "and I look forward to signing comprehensive health
insurance reform into law by the end of the year."
Victory Came With A Cost
But the struggle for passage in the House, after a
full day of rhetorical scuffles and contentious debate, came at some
cost to Democrats who support a woman's right to have access to legal
abortion — presaging what will likely be a topic of considerable debate
in the Senate.
To win the votes of conservative party members who
oppose abortion, House Democratic leaders endorsed an amendment to their
legislation that bars the use of government subsidies to buy any
insurance plan that covers the procedure. The move angered many in the
party's 190-member House pro-choice caucus, who said they viewed it as
an invasion of women's medical privacy. The amendment, however, ensured
the politically necessary support of some Roman Catholic lawmakers and
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Conservative Democrats won the hard-fought chance
to offer the abortion restriction amendment during debate, and with the
support of all but one House Republican, it passed by a vote of 240 to
194. Arizona Republican John Shadegg voted "present" to the amendment.
With such close margins and the struggle over the
abortion issue, it had been uncertain if Pelosi could gather the votes
needed to pass the bill — even though Democrats enjoy an 81-vote edge in
the House. But with passage secured, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer joked,
"For all of my friends in the press who've been assaulting me in the
hallways, asking if we have the votes, the answer is yes."
Earlier Saturday, President Obama, in an unusual
weekend visit to the Capitol, personally urged lawmakers to "rise to the
moment" and "finish the job."
The House Democrats' plan would cost close to a
trillion dollars over the next decade, and would mandate that most
employers cover their workers. It also requires people who are not
insured through their employers to buy coverage, and it expands
government programs to help them pay for that. The bill bars insurance
companies from denying coverage to people based on pre-existing
conditions, and includes other insurance industry reforms.
Freshman Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana was the lone
Republican to vote for the bill. He represents a heavily Democratic
district, and faces an uphill re-election battle next year. His fellow
Republicans were united in the reasons for their opposition. "The
American people need to understand this is about a government takeover
of the whole health care system," said Georgia Rep. Paul Broun.
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This
information was reprinted from
kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J.
Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser
Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up
for email delivery. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All
rights reserved. |
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