Senate Passes Health Care Bill
December 24, 2009 by St. Lucie Times Staff · Leave a Comment
The Senate’s version of the Health Care Bill – H.R 3590 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – passed this morning with a 60-39 vote. Fifty-eight Democrats and two Independents voted “yes,” while Republicans unanimously voted “no”. Senator Jim Bunning (R, KY) did not vote.
The Senate bill would require all Americans to obtain health insurance, provide new subsidies to help low and middle-income people purchase insurance, expand Medicaid coverage to millions more low-income Americans, create new “exchanges” for comparison shopping health care plans, ban insurance companies from denying coverage based on “pre-existing conditions” and, to pay for it all, tax the most expensive health care policies.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the bill would expand health insurance coverage to 31 million more people over the next ten years. The non-partisan CBO also estimated that the bill would reduce federal deficits by $130 billion over the next ten years.
The next step will be to reconcile the Senate bill with the House bill, H.R 3962. These two bills have some significant differences. The House bill contains a public option and would use a tax increase on the wealthy as a revenue raiser. A joint House-Senate conference committee will meet in January to start merging the bills. Then, both chambers, House and Senate, will need to pass the same final version before it is sent to the President.
