Reid: Public will greet health care bill with ‘joy and happiness’
In the final minutes of the Senate health care debate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said lawmakers would hear “an earful” about the national health care bill from constituents who are solidly opposed to the legislation. In response, Majority Leader Harry Reid cited the case of a young disabled boy in Nevada who Reid said will now have health coverage and said that Democrats will indeed hear an earful — “an earful of joy and happiness.”
“Yes, we’ll hear an earful,” Reid added, “but it will be an earful of wonderment and happiness.”
At 7:16 a.m., the Senate passed on a 60-39 party line vote a sweeping health care bill that will tighten insurance regulations, provide insurance for 31 million more Americans and cost $871 billion over the next decade.
“This is for my friend Ted Kennedy, aye,” said Sen. Robert Byrd as he cast his vote.
Clearly exhausted, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid mistakenly voted no before changing his vote to yes, which got a laugh in the chamber, especially from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
Budget Office Rebuts Democratic Claims on Medicare
The Congressional Budget Office challenged claims by health-care overhaul proponents that Medicare savings in Senate legislation would help finance expanded coverage and postpone the bankruptcy of the medical program for the elderly.
The nonpartisan agency said the $246 billion it projected the legislation would save Medicare can’t both finance new programs and help pay future expenses for elderly covered under the federal program.
Nor could those savings be used to extend the solvency of Medicare, set to run out of money in 2017, the budget office said in a letter to Senate Republicans.
“What we’ve seen is a colossal manipulation” by Democrats “of the accounting scores of CBO” and the independent actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, said Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, the Republican who requested the analysis from CBO. He called the letter “a potential game-changer.”
The estimated Medicare savings in the legislation overstate “the improvement in the government’s fiscal position,” the CBO said in the letter.
“The true increase in the ability to pay for future Medicare benefits or other programs would be a good deal smaller,” the budget office said.
Abortion looms as possible block to health bill
The way abortions are covered under health care reform is a major obstacle to finalizing the legislation, even though the House and Senate both agree that no federal money should be used.
The stumbling block is whether insurance plans that get federal money are completely barred from covering abortions, or whether they can cover it as long as they require customers to write separate checks for the procedure using their own money.
Why does that matter?
Because the House and Senate solved the dispute in different ways, neither of which makes everyone happy, and now they have to find a further compromise.
“Something’s going to have to give,” said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., author of the abortion language in the House.
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