As much as one can analyze a 1,274-page health care bill in a few days, I've taken a first in-depth glance at the Senate Health Care Reform Bill, and find it to be a good enough start.
(Read my summary at Key Provisions of the Senate Health Care Reform Bill.)
The problem, of course, is that this legislation will only get less, not more, liberal as the Senate endlessly debates and nitpicks the bill. But I digress, as that dilemma is down the road, and hardly today's challenge.
Briefly, the primary difference between the House Health Care Bill, which was passed by the House on November 7, 2009, and this Senate companion bill, the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," H.R. 3590, is NOT in coverage and benefits for U.S. citizens and legal residents: those appear to be remarkably similar, including a watered-down Medicare-like public plan option.
Instead, the primary difference between the House and Senate health care reform bills lies in planned sources of funding for the public plan option: while the House bill relies mainly on levying employers who fail to provide coverage for their employees, the Senate version relies more on new taxes and levies on the health care and pharmaceutical industries, and on high-income individuals, especially those with employer-provided "cadillac plan" health care coverage.
An interesting new wrinkle introduced by the Senate Health Care Reform Plan is a 5% tax on elective cosmatic surgery. (Pardon the "wrinkle" pun... I couldn't resist.)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has set Saturday evening, November 21st, for a Senate cloture vote to begin debate of the proposed legislation. Three moderate Democratic senators from notoriously conservative states... Landrieu of Louisiana, Nelson of Nebraska, and Lincoln of Arkansas... are said to be dragging their feet in support of this vote, which requires 60 senators to vote YES.
My guess is that these three senators will do the right thing (especially after being lured by pricey legislative goodies), and vote to let Senate debate formally commence on this overdue, urgently needed measure.
Of course, to garner the requisite 60 votes, Democrats will also need the support of former Democrat, Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, since presumably, no Republicans will vote to advance debate of the bill.
God only knows how attention-seeking, liberal turncoat Lieberman will vote tomorrow. And I shudder to even imagine what Democrats might have to concede to get this political narcissist's support on this bill.
But undoubtedly, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid will do what he must to move health care reform forward. And post-Thanksgiving, the fireworks of the Senate health care reform bill debate WILL begin!
Comments
What started out as a hopeful endeavor, has been perverted into a massive clusterf**k of corporate whoring, the likes of which I have never seen before. We should stop pretending Congress represents anything other than their corporate owners. Democracy? What a complete farce – we should just allow corporations to openly buy seats in Congress.
Compare the thousands of pages of House and Senate proposed legislation with the Canada Health Act.
Most Canadians would probably faint if someone showed them the Canada Health Act. It is far from being a massive legalese monster that defines everything in the huge health sector down to the letter.
The act is just 13 pages. It could be easily folded into quarters and slipped into your back pocket. Its framers made it vague intentionally so as to include as many health services as possible. It was meant to set the floor of the health-care sector, not the ceiling.
This was taken from a recent post arguing that after twenty-five years it’s time to bring it up for review.
BTW, it may not survive, but the Senate version includes Kennedy’s CLASS Act, a carefully crafted, self-financing, opt-out (?) approach to assisting with long-term care. Short for “Community Living Assistance Services and Support,” this is a government alternative to private long-term care insurance. It differs from private insurance in several important details.
AC
Your 100% correct. It should e illegal to receive any campaign contributions from corporations. If you get caught you should be tried for treason.
According to wikipedia treason is defined as:
“In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more serious acts of disloyalty to one’s sovereign or nation.
So any leader caught selling out the American people for corporate interests should be tried for treason.
Maybe then we will see representative government.
Dear Author usliberals.about.com !
You have hit the mark. In it something is also I think, what is it good idea.
WWeiss_TheLonelyModerate –
Did you ever go to school? Have you ever written a major report or essay of somekind? The first thing you are told in every english or composition class is that Wikipedia is NOT a valid source of information. You should never use wikipedia for anything that requires finite, exact, or 100 percent truthful answers. If you cite Wikipedia in your bibliography or by in text citations, you have just quaranteed the disregard of the entirity of your work. In many schools, you can fail a research report solely on the basis of the use of Wikipedia. Next time, find a source that doesn’t allow any slow brained, elementary school dropout to edit any article they so choose.