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December 24, 2009 in Nation/World
Senate Democrats pass landmark health care bill
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats passed a landmark health care bill in a climactic Christmas Eve vote that could define President Barack Obama’s legacy and usher in near-universal medical coverage for the first time in the country’s history.
“We are now finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people,” Obama said shortly after the Senate acted.
“This will be the most important piece of social legislation since Social Security passed in the 1930s,” said Obama, standing with Vice President Joe Biden in the State Room of the White House.
The 60-39 vote on a cold winter morning capped months of arduous negotiations and 24 days of floor debate. It also followed a succession of failures by past congresses to get to this point. Biden presided as 58 Democrats and two independents voted “yes.” Republicans unanimously voted “no.”
An exhausted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., initially cast a “no” vote by mistake, then quickly corrected himself as fellow senators burst out laughing.
The tally far exceeded the simple majority required for passage.
The Senate’s bill must still be merged with legislation passed by the House before Obama could sign a final bill in the new year. There are significant differences between the two measures but Democrats say they’ve come too far now to fail.
Both bills would extend health insurance to more than 30 million more Americans. Obama said the legislation “includes the toughest measures ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable.”
Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama flew to Hawaii, said the House and Senate versions were “95 percent similar.”
“We’re going to be actively working to iron out the rest of the differences and get a bill passed and signed,” Burton said.
Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who made health care reform his life’s work, watched the vote from the gallery. So did Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the longest-serving House member and a champion of universal health care his entire career.
“This morning isn’t the end of the process, it’s merely the beginning. We’ll continue to build on this success to improve our health system even more,” Reid said before the vote. “But that process cannot begin unless we start today … there may not be a next time.”
At a news conference a few moments later, Reid said the vote “brings us one step closer to making Ted Kennedy’s dream a reality.”
The Nevadan said that “every step of this long process has been an enormous undertaking.”
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, said he “very happy to see people getting health care they could not get.”
It was the Senate’s first Christmas Eve vote since 1895, when the matter at hand was a military affairs bill concerning employment of former Confederate officers, according to the Senate Historical Office.
After the vote Obama offered congratulations in phone calls to Vicki Kennedy and Reid, Baucus and other senators, including 92-year-old Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., who was brought to the Senate in a wheelchair.
The House passed its own measure in November. The White House and Congress have now come further toward the goal of a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s health care system than any of their predecessors.
The legislation would 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 to do so. Employers would be induced to cover their employees through a combination of tax credits and penalties. The legislation costs nearly $1 trillion over 10 years and is paid for by a combination of taxes, fees and cuts to Medicare.
Republicans were withering in their criticism of what they deemed a budget-busting government takeover. If the measure were worthwhile, contended Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., “they wouldn’t be rushing it through Congress on Christmas Eve.”
House Minority Leader John Boehner assailed the bill moments after passage.
“Not even Ebenezer Scrooge himself could devise a scheme as cruel and greedy as Democrats’ government takeover of health care,” the Ohio Republican said in a statement.
“Sen. Reid’s health care bill increases premiums for families and small businesses, raises taxes during a recession, cuts seniors’ Medicare benefits, adds to our skyrocketing debt, and puts bureaucrats in charge of decisions that should be made by patients and doctors,” he said.
The occasion was moving for Sen. Paul Kirk, D-Mass., appointed to fill Kennedy’s seat after his death in August.
“He’s having a merry Christmas in heaven,” Kirk told reporters after the tally. He said he was “humbled to be here with the honor of casting essentially his vote.”
Said Dingell: “This is for me, this is for my dad, this is for the country.”
Reid nailed the last votes down in a rush of dealmaking in the last week that is now coming under attack because of special provisions obtained by a number of senators. In Nebraska, home to conservative Democrat Ben Nelson, the Democrats’ crucial 60th vote, the federal government will pay 100 percent of the cost of a planned Medicaid expansion in perpetuity, the only state getting that deal.
Negotiations between the House and Senate to reconcile differences between the two bills are expected to begin as soon as next week. The House bill has stricter limits on abortion than the Senate, and 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. Obama has signaled he will sign a bill even if it lacks that provision.
© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Obama honors Medal of Freedom recipients as heroes 
spokanada on December 24 at 10:02 a.m.
Now the fun begins, putting the two bills together.
greyhound2 on December 24 at 11:06 a.m.
The Senate bill is no reform at all, it is just a “rubber stamp” of the status quo.
It is amazing that the US, which spends more money on health care at 16% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and ranks 37th in the quality of health care available to the “average” citizen while France, which spends half that amount at 8% GDP and ranks number one in quality, according to the UN WHO.
For Congress, it is impossible to do justice to the public business with a system based on bribes. According to a CNN report, members of the House received each/average $450,000 while Senate members received each/average $1.4 million from healthcare stakeholder lobbyists. Does the picture come into focus now?
Spokane_PI on December 24 at 12:05 p.m.
I for one am glad this happened. Now that we have all seen the corruption that goes on in Washington (on both sides of the isle) we can hold them accountable in next years election.
Shame on the democrats for rushing this through in the dark of the night. Had the democrats worked in a bi partison fashion we could have had a truly landmark bill. Its sad…. really sad.
I for one will send campaign contributions to the candidates who oppose the senators who voted for this bill.
To senators Pelosi, Reid, Nelson, and Baucus…Im sending twice as much to your opponents. You make me sick! Pathetic, Putrid, Pieces of Crap.
The rest of you- Merry Christmas!
spokanada on December 24 at 12:17 p.m.
Spokane PI, you are going to send $10 to Reid and Pelosi but $20 to their opponents?
Good luck with the election next year. I heard Palin started a Facebook group “If i get 10 000 people to join this group I will be president of Alaska”
The rest of you- Happy Holidays.
Cougardave on December 24 at 12:22 p.m.
Too bad our senators “give it away for free”. According to Senator Reid if they didn’t get something special for their state they aren’t very good at their job.
I say because they voted for this garbage bill, they wont have their job for long!
bdr on December 24 at 12:31 p.m.
Well to keep it simple here since we are the first industrialized nation to lose all of its jobs voluntarily by Nafta,cafta,china free trade.
And we are the last Industrialized nation with no social health care .
America has finally woken from its drunken stupor in the alley with no job and no health insurance completely bankrupt.
and finally realized to be employed in this world the recipe for success, is to be like the other industrialized nations.
thus you have social health care (now if we can show loyalty for our products again like Europe does now with their products like AG AND MERCEDES , Nike and the others will come home).
JBlim on December 24 at 2:35 p.m.
Spokane PI,
Shame on the Democrats?? This is why they were up so late:
“Republicans used a slew of legislative delay tactics — including on the typically bipartisan defense appropriations bill — even after it became clear that Democrats had the 60 votes they needed to pass health care….”
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09358/1023349-84.stm#ixzz0aeFgDdVH