Tulsa World: Health care bill clears Senate hurdle

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Health care bill clears Senate hurdle

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Ky., center, shows copy of the Democratic health care reform bill during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Friday. From left are, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., McConnell, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. AP PHOTO

By DAVID ESPO Associated Press Writer
Published: 11/21/2009 6:56 AM
Last Modified: 11/21/2009 7:27 PM

WASHINGTON — Invoking the name of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.

The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.

The spectator galleries were full for the unusual Saturday night showdown, and applause broke out briefly when the vote was announced. In a measure of the significance of the moment, senators sat quietly in their seats, standing only when they were called upon to vote.

Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio missed the vote.

Oklahoma's two Republican senators — Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn — opposed the effort to advance the bill.

During debate, Inhofe criticized the timing of the vote.

"I find it beyond just being deceptive that the Democrat Leadership planned a vote on a Saturday night at 8 p.m. to proceed to a bill which has nothing to do with health care," Inhofe said. "After six weeks behind closed doors, the Senate Leader is using a bill on extending the housing tax credit to members of the military as a bait-and-switch to bring his health care bill before the Senate. They are trying to move forward on this bill late at night when most Americans are more focused on family time and weekend activities."

In a statement issued after the vote, Coburn said the bill was "the most reckless, irresponsible and dishonest piece of legislation I have seen in my time in Congress.”

“I'm disappointed my colleagues voted for a bill that will bust the budget, increase taxes, coerce taxpayers into funding abortion, and grant politicians and bureaucrats the power to ration and deny medically-necessary care.

"The accounting tricks in this bill would make Bernie Madoff and Enron executives blush," Coburn said.

In the final minutes of a daylong debate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of trying to stifle a debate the nation needed.

"Imagine if, instead of debating whether to abolish slavery, instead of debating whether giving women and minorities the right to vote, those who disagreed had muted discussion and killed any vote," he said.

The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said the vote was anything but procedural — casting it as a referendum on the bill itself, which he said would raise taxes, cut Medicare and create a "massive and unsustainable debt."

For all the drama, the result of the Saturday night showdown had been sealed a few hours earlier, when two final Democratic holdouts, Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, announced they would join in clearing the way for a full debate.

"It is clear to me that doing nothing is not an option," said Landrieu, who won $100 million in the legislation to help her state pay the costs of health care for the poor.

Lincoln, who faces a tough re-election next year, said the evening vote will "mark the beginning of consideration of this bill by the U.S. Senate, not the end."

Both stressed they were not committing in advance to vote for the bill that ultimately emerges from next month's debate. Even so, their announcements marked a major victory for Reid and the White House in a year-end drive to enact the most sweeping changes to the nation's health care system in a half-century or more.

The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide subsidies to those who couldn't afford it. Large companies could incur costs if they did not provide coverage to their workforce. The insurance industry would come under significant new regulation under the bill, which would first ease and then ban the practice of denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

Congressional budget analysts put the legislation's cost at $979 billion over a decade and said it would reduce deficits over the same period while extending coverage to 94 percent of the eligible population.

By DAVID ESPO Associated Press Writer

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Reader comments for this story have been moved to the most updated version of the story, now under the headline "Dems clear health-care hurdle," which was published on 11/22/2009. So far, 409 comments have been made.