Showdown on healthcare: 3 big issues
As final votes on healthcare loom in Congress, abortion, taxes and the public option could still derail efforts.
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With Senate health care win likely, Dems now must woo public
With Senate health care win likely, Dems now must woo public
WASHINGTON — Democrats are calling the Senate's health-care bill a first big step toward insuring more Americans and controlling costs, while Republicans counter that it's the first step toward bigger government and higher taxes.
The two parties are locked in a fierce battle to sway public opinion, and whoever wins it will win the health-care struggle, which now looks likely to stretch into 2010.
The next legislative step is expected at about 7 a.m. Tuesday, when the Senate plans to take a second vote on cutting off a Republican-led debate on the Democrats' $871 billion plan. The first effort passed early Monday, 60 to 40, on a straight party-line vote.
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Final outcome of health debate could hinge on public opinion
Final outcome of health debate could hinge on public opinion
Democrats are calling the Senate's health care bill a first big step toward insuring more Americans and controlling costs, while Republicans counter that it's the first step toward bigger government and higher taxes.
The two parties are locked in a fierce battle to sway public opinion, and whoever wins it will win the health-care struggle, which now looks likely to stretch into 2010.
The next legislative step is expected at about 7 a.m. Tuesday, when the Senate plans to take a second vote on cutting off a Republican-led debate on the Democrats' $871 billion plan. The first effort passed 60-40 early Monday on a straight party-line vote.
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House poised to pass health bill
House poised to pass health bill
The House moved Saturday night toward a vote on the most sweeping healthcare bill in generations, one that would guarantee health coverage to almost all Americans.
After a personal push from President Barack Obama, the House of Representatives Saturday stood poised to pass historic healthcare legislation that would guarantee virtually all Americans access to care.
A new obstacle course awaited in the Senate.
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Amid contentious health care issues, there's a lot lawmakers agree on
Amid contentious health care issues, there's a lot lawmakers agree on
WASHINGTON — The mounting Senate tension in these last days of the 2009 session is all about public options, Medicare and abortion policy, but step away from the rhetorical flames and it turns out that a lot of lawmakers from both parties agree on many proposals to change the nation's health care system.
The headlines will say that Senate Democrats struggled Monday to find common ground on the more contentious issues, and President Barack Obama planned to meet with them Tuesday afternoon.
At the same time, though, there's little discord over plans to require insurers to offer a minimum amount of coverage to nearly everyone, and the Democratic-authored House of Representatives and Senate bills bar insurers from denying coverage or raising rates because of pre-existing conditions.
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Healthcare bill's next step: Plenty of compromises
Healthcare bill's next step: Plenty of compromises
The Senate began its final, frantic steps toward passage of historic healthcare legislation on Sunday, as lawmakers and interest groups began turning their attention to the difficult battles over abortion, taxes and the public option that lie ahead.
The Senate early Monday morning is expected to cut off a Republican-led debate on the Democratic-authored $871 billion healthcare overhaul, a crucial step that will move the package close to final approval in that chamber later this week.
Once that happens, probably Wednesday or Thursday, the bill will have to be reconciled with the version the House of Representatives passed last month.
BY DAVID LIGHTMAN
McClatchy News Serice
WASHINGTON -- Democrats are calling the Senate's healthcare bill a first big step toward insuring more Americans and controlling costs, while Republicans counter that it's the first step toward bigger government and higher taxes.
The two parties are locked in a fierce battle to sway public opinion, and whoever wins it will win the healthcare struggle, which now looks likely to stretch into 2010.
The next legislative step is expected at about 7 a.m. Tuesday, when the Senate plans to take a second vote on cutting off a Republican-led debate on the Democrats' $871 billion plan. The first effort passed 60-40 early Monday on a straight party-line vote.
If the Senate passes the bill later this week, as expected, negotiators from both chambers of Congress will begin trying to reconcile the Senate measure and one the House of Representatives passed last month.
One threat to eventual passage is the public's view of the legislation, said Paul Ginsburg, the president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan Washington research group.
It could take several weeks for the conference to produce a bill, and ``that's a long time for public opinion to shift,'' he said, and its success, particularly in an election year, will depend on ``how this plays out with the public over the next few months.''
Signs of what could happen next are mixed.
``There's pretty broad agreement on a lot,'' said Elizabeth Carpenter, a health policy analyst at the New America Foundation, a center-left Washington research group.
Under both bills, insurers would be barred from rejecting anyone because of preexisting conditions.
Gone, too, would be the practice in many states of charging women more than men, and insurers would be limited in how much they could increase rates on older people.
Consumers would be able to shop for coverage through exchanges, much as they now scan the Internet for the best airline fares. Most people would have to obtain a certain level of coverage, and they would have to pay penalties if they fail to do so.
Both houses agree on financial help for people having trouble affording coverage: They both would provide aid to families earning up to about $88,000 per year.
What could derail the entire effort are areas in which Democratic leaders have struggled for months to find common ground: abortion, taxes and the public option.
Ultimately, Democrats will write the final bill, because they control 60 Senate seats -- enough to cut off extended debate -- and 258 of the House's 435 seats. However, that means appealing to the approximately 52 moderate-to-conservative Blue Dogs in the House, as well as to the eight to 12 centrist Democrats in the Senate.
That's likely to mean important concessions on the three big sticking points.
Already, liberals' preference for a government-run insurance alternative and giving women more access to elective abortions faded when moderate senators balked.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who over the weekend provided the crucial 60th vote to cut off debate, explained a big reason he went along:
``The Senate healthcare bill is not perfect. Yet it doesn't include a public option or taxpayer funding of abortion I worked to exclude.''
One of the public option's biggest boosters, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., realized that without the moderates, the entire healthcare bill could be defeated.
