The First Step is the Hardest
The Senate Finance Committee today approved the bill to overhaul the United States health care system. For months now the debate has been going back and forth, primarily focused on a federal national option (Which is not part of the bill). The New York Times reports the following accomplishments of the bill:
The bill seeks to provide health benefits to a majority of uninsured by expanding Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for the poor, and creating new state-run insurance options for individuals and families earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level or $44,100 for a family of four.
For many other moderate-income Americans, the bill would provide government subsidies to help them buy insurance through new government-regulated marketplaces.
The legislation also seeks to impose strict new regulations on the insurance industry, including banning insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and it would require nearly all Americans to obtain coverage.
The CBO says that the new overhaul will cost $829 billion over the 10 years, and would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 29 million. The program will still leave 25 million Americans without health insurance, one-third of which are illegal aliens.
The main part of the story is that Republican Senator Olympia Snowe from Maine did vote with the 13 democrats on the committee, the only republican to do so.
Senator Snowe said:
Is this bill all that I would want? Far from it. Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls. And I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress to take every opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to solve the monumental issues of our time.
Hopefully we can move together on other momentous issues of our time and at least take the the first step towards fixing this nation.
The final vote of the committee was 14-9, with all but one Republican opposed.
The rest of the New York Times article can be read here.
