Senate begins health-care debate; outcome is uncertain

MCCLATCHY TRIBUNE

WASHINGTON — The Senate, after almost a year of maneuvering over policies and politics, on Monday officially began debate on the landmark legislation to overhaul the nation’s health-care system. But it remains uncertain how long the deliberations will last or how much the bill will change before it comes to a vote.

With Republicans united in opposition and conservative Democrats and the Senate’s two independents continuing to express reservations, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., faced a daunting challenge in building the filibuster-proof majority needed for final passage.

He promised to keep the Senate working through weekends on the 2,074-page, $849 billion bill, in hopes of bringing it to a vote by Christmas and landing it on President Barack Obama’s desk for signing before the end of January.

And he sought to remind Democrats that, after investing so much time and political capital in the health-care issue, the price of failure could be high.

“While each of us may not say ‘yes’ to each word in this bill as it currently reads, let us at least admit that simply saying ‘no’ is not enough,” said Reid, opening debate on legislation that marks the most ambitious effort in decades to provide near-universal health-insurance coverage, slap new regulations on insurance companies and curb the skyrocketing costs of health care.

Republicans have considerable power to extend the debate into the new year. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has indicated that he would like at least six weeks of discussion on a bill that is the product of closed-door meetings in which Reid merged the results of two committees’ work.

“Kentuckians want to know how spending trillions of dollars we don’t have on a plan that raises health-insurance premiums and taxes on families and small businesses is good for health care or for jobs or for the economy, for that matter,” McConnell said as he returned from a Thanksgiving trip to his home state.

“The fact is Americans feel like they have been taken for a ride in this debate,” he asserted.’

But just as debate began, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a report challenging a Republican claim that the bill would drive the cost of insurance through the roof.

The CBO, which is the arm of Congress that analyzes federal budget and spending proposals, found that under the Senate bill, premiums for most people — those in group plans provided by their employers — would remain unchanged or even drop.

In a sign of how high the health- care stakes are for Obama, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other senior administration officials traveled to Capitol Hill to plot strategy with Senate leaders Monday.

Democratic leaders acknowledge that major provisions may have to be changed to win the 60 votes needed to break an expected GOP filibuster and pass the bill.

Republicans began their attack with an amendment to strip out provisions that would curb the growth of Medicare spending by nearly $500 billion over 10 years.

While Democrats said the savings would come from squeezing excessive subsidies and inefficient practices, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said they would curb benefits to the elderly and cater to special interests that lobbied the White House.