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Message: <blockquote data-quote="klein" data-source="post: 616021" data-attributes="member: 23950">Re: Obamanation here todayAnd more Obama News : Health care reform clears a US Senate hurdle, wins bonus backing from moderate Republican  Oct.13th, 2009 By Steven R. Hurst, The Associated Press WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's vow to reform the U.S. health care system cleared a key hurdle Tuesday with a bonus vote from a moderate Republican whose backing could be key to final passage.  Members of the 23-member Senate finance committee voted 14-9 to approve the legislation, setting up a historic debate on the Senate floor and moving health care overhaul closer to reality than it has been for decades.  The measure meets most of the requirements set out by Obama, who promised voters during the presidential campaign to overhaul a system by extending insurance coverage to virtually all Americans, lowering medical costs and ending insurance industry practices of refusing protection to people with so-called pre-existing conditions or dropping coverage to those who become seriously ill.  Excepting Sen. Olympia Snowe, opposition Republicans are battling the overhaul plans, claiming the Democrats' measure will unduly increase the national debt and wrongly intrude on the private sector. And some members of the opposition party see it as a chance to score political points by sinking a measure at the core of Obama's presidency.  Most controversial among those issues would be establishment of a government program in competition with the private insurance industry. That was written out of the Senate Finance Committee but remains part of three reform plans passed by committees in the House of Representatives.  Snow said she was laying aside misgivings for now and voting to advance the bill, a sweeping $829 billion, 10-year health care remake. "When history calls, history calls," said Snowe.  Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, called his bill "a commonsense, balanced solution." A distance runner, Baucus has endured months of marathon meetings to get this far. It is not the finish line.  Health care legislation is expected to be on the Senate floor the week after next, said a spokesman for Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid. But it will not be Baucus' bill. Reid will combine the Finance version with a more liberal proposal from the health committee - with unpredictable results.  The Senate Finance Committee's plan would require most Americans to purchase insurance and usher in a host of other changes to the $2.5 trillion U.S. medical system. The U.S. is the only industrialized country without universal health care coverage, and about 47 million Americans are uninsured.  Much work lies ahead before a bill could arrive on Obama's desk, but passage by the Finance Committee marks a significant advance. Snowe voted yes after heavy courting by the Democrats who saw her as the best chance for breaking the partisan barrier.  She became the first Republican to support a health overhaul bill. The health legislation that passed three House committees and one other Senate panel did so without a single Republican vote.  Sen. Charles Grassley, top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in advance that the reform measure was "moving on a slippery slope to more and more government control of health care."  The four other congressional committees acted before August to pass health legislation, so for months all eyes have been on the Finance Committee, the remaining one. It is also the panel whose moderate makeup most closely resembles the Senate as a whole. The committee's centrist legislation is seen as the best building block for a compromise plan that could find favour on the Senate floor.  With Finance Committee passage, Obama's top domestic priority advances beyond former President Bill Clinton's effort ever did. The Clinton health plan never made it through all the congressional committees with jurisdiction.  When the Senate floor debate starts, Republicans, while a minority, still hold sufficient votes to stall passage through a delaying procedure known as a filibuster.  That move is expected and would require majority Democrats to muster all 60 of their votes, not a simple majority of 51, to end debate and bring a bill to a final vote. Some fiscally conservative Democrats are opposed to the bill coming out of the committee, so that gaining the 60 votes to break a filibuster is far from certain.  And even if that happens, the health care bill would then move to what is known as a conference committee to meld the Senate bill with one passed by the House. The lower house, where the Democrats have a heftier majority and delaying tactics are not possible, is considering three versions of the legislation, any one of them assured of passage and far more inclusive of an outcome sought by the White House. -</blockquote>

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