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Health-care legislation is close but yet so far
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Published: October 3, 2009
WASHINGTON
Eight months in office, President Obama has now pushed closer than any other president in generations to creating a basic health-care safety net for working Americans. Yet the fate of legislation delivering on his goal is far from certain: Republicans are nearly unified in opposition, Democrats hardly united in support.
Indeed, few if any of the major arguments about the scope and costs of the historic undertaking are settled as congressional leaders prepare to take legislation to the floor in the next two weeks.
Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee came together early Friday -- after 2 a.m. -- to finish the heavy lifting on a bill designed to appeal to moderates. Obama hailed it as a milestone and noted, for history, that overhauling health care has eluded presidents from Harry S. Truman to Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton.
"We are now closer than ever before to finally passing reform that will offer security to those who have coverage and affordable insurance to those who don't," Obama said.
But not yet. And not for sure.
The 10-year, $900 billion bill would remake one-sixth of the U.S. economy, clearing a path to health insurance for millions who don't have it now. It would be financed by reducing Medicare and Medicaid payments to health-care providers, and by ordering new taxes and fees that are already meeting resistance. Insurers would no longer be able to turn away those in poor health.
Final passage in the Finance Committee, a political bellwether, is all but assured next week. After that, things really start to get interesting.
A government-run plan doesn't appear to have the votes to clear the Senate. In the House, it's the other way around. A bill that doesn't include a government plan to compete with private insurers won't get off the floor, Democratic leaders say.
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