Senate passes bill on health

Christmas Eve vote rare, early

— In a Christmas Eve session, the Senate approved a healthcare bill Thursday on a 60-39 party-line vote that moves the nation closer to what President Barack Obama called “real, meaningful health-insurance reform.”

Arkansas’ two senators - Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor - joined the other Democrats and two independents in supporting the bill.

Every Republican senator voted no, except Jim Bunning of Kentucky, a frequent no-show since announcing his forthcoming retirement.

Within two hours after the early-morning vote, Obama appeared in the White House’s State Dining Room to hail the measure. He was accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, who had presided over the Senate during Thursday’s vote - the chamber’s first Christmas Eve vote in more than a century.

“With today’s vote, we are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country,” the president said. “Our challenge, then, is to finish the job. We can’t doom another generation of Americans to soaring costs and eroding coverage and exploding deficits.”

The Senate vote followed House passage of its healthcare measure last month. Now the two bills - which have major differences over what is included and how it’s paid for - must be reconciled into a final version. Both chambers must then approve the bill again before it can be sent to the president, who can either sign it or veto it.

Congressional leaders will return to the Capitol soon after the Christmas break to begin the arduous process of merging the two bills. Although it’s unlikely that the measure will be completed before the president’s State of the Union address in late January or early February, leaders hope to have it on his desk soon afterward.

Citing numerous failed efforts to overhaul the U.S. health-care system that dates back generations, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said after the vote that the Senate had finally found the resolve to advance the effort.

“This is a victory for the American people,” Reid said. “Those fortunate enough to have health insurance will be able to keep theirs, and those who do not will be able to have health insurance.”

The scene at the Capitol on the day before Christmas was unusual. Senators arrived in the pre-dawn hours, with temperatures well below freezing. The darkness was shattered by the flashing lights and screaming sirens of Biden’s motorcade.

The Senate galleries filled with spectators to watch the proceedings. Among them: Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the 83-year-old dean of the House who presided over the Nov. 7 passage of the House bill as well as the 1965 passage of Medicare, and Vicki Reggie Kennedy, widow of Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, whose memory has been invoked by fellow Democrats throughout the healthcare debate.

When he cast his vote for the bill from his wheelchair, 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the longest serving member of Congress, intoned: “Mr. President, this is for my friend, Ted Kennedy.”

Thursday’s vote culminated a round-the-clock march to pass the bill before Christmas. In the days leading to the vote, senators cast votes after midnight and before dawn, and even during a record-setting snowfall that blanketed the Capitol.

The last time the Senatevoted on Christmas Eve was in 1895, and the last time the Senate convened on that date was in 1963 to debate the Vietnam War the month after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

In the final stages of the health-care debate process, both parties remained steadfast - Republicans in their efforts to stop the bill with filibusters, procedural maneuvers and constitutional challenges; Democrats by cobbling together and maintaining the 60 votes needed to stave off those efforts. As a result, the Senate stayed in session 25 consecutive days, the second-longest such stretch in history. That means many senators have not been to their home states since the Thanksgiving break.

All week, Republicans continued their criticism of the bill and of Democrats’ efforts to maintain their coalition to pass it. Although Thursday’s health-care bill required only a simple majority of 51 votes to pass, several procedural matters throughout the week required 60 votes.

“This debate was supposed to produce a bill that reformed health care in America,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in comments before the vote. “Instead, we’re left with party-line votes in the middle of the night, a couple of sweetheart deals to get it over the finish line, and a public that’s outraged.”

The Senate bill would extend coverage to an estimated 31 million who lack it, while banning the insurance industry from denying benefits or charging higher premiums on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would reduce deficits by $130 billion over the next 10 years.

But key differences remainwith the House version of the legislation. Chief among them is the public health-insurance option that is included in the House bill but not the Senate one. Other matters also remain to be resolved, including how to pay for the legislation and how to structure restrictions on the use of public funding for abortions.

With these obstacles in mind, the president said it was time to take “the last and most important step” toward approving a final bill.

“With passage of reform bills in both the House and the Senate, we are now finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people,” Obama said, characterizing the legislation as “the most important piece of social policy since the Social Security Act in the 1930s, and the most important reform of ourhealth-care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s.”

After the vote, the president called key lawmakers and others, including David Turner of Little Rock, whose health insurance coverage was rescinded when his insurance company alleged that he’d failed to disclose his full medical record. Turner was a guest of first lady Michelle Obama at the president’s health-care speech to Congress in September.

According to a White House statement, Obama told Turner “that stories like his motivate him every day to keep working on health insurance reform” and that he will continue to work for legislation that would prohibit rescission and other insurance industry practices.

Lincoln and Pryor had opposed creating a governmentrun health-care plan, the socalled public option.

In the Senate bill, “Peoplein Arkansas ought to be happy because that public option goes away,” Pryor said. Instead, the Senate version includes a health insurance exchange similar to what Lincoln has long advocated for small businesses.

Such an exchange would allow consumers to choose from a menu of insurance plans offered by private insurers.

While Thursday’s vote was a significant step on the healthcare bill, Lincoln and Pryor pointed out that there remains a long distance to travel before the bill becomes a law, a journey that they agreed will be challenging.

“Once the House looks at the Senate bill, I think they’ll like it,” Pryor said. “The Senate bill is more balanced; it takes a lot of other factors into consideration. It isn’t quite the blunt instrument I think that the House bill is. The Senate bill is better when it comes to the fiscal situation for the country.”

Both senators emphasized that the final version of the legislation will have to largely reflect the Senate measure to maintain the Senate’s 60-vote margin that will be required to overcome Republican opposition to it.

If “substantial changes” are made during the compromise process, “then we’re back to square one,” said Lincoln, who was among a handful of senators who withheld support until changes were made in the bill. “I think myself and others are going to be very frustrated. And we’ve made it clear what we can’t support” it.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/25/2009

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