Key Senate committee approves US health reform bill (3rd Roundup)

By Chris Cermak Oct 13, 2009, 21:48 GMT

Washington - A key Senate panel approved a dramatic overhaul of US health care coverage on Tuesday, bringing President Barack Obama's top domestic priority one major step closer to fruition.

The Senate Finance Committee's 14-9 vote, which was largely along party lines, comes after months of fierce disputes between lawmakers and interest groups and paves the way for the entire Senate to consider the reform plans in the coming weeks.

The finance committee's version is considered to have the best chance of passing Congress, and Obama hailed the vote as a 'critical milestone' that could help end a decades-long fight for comprehensive reforms of the world's costliest health-care system.

'We are now closer than ever before to passing health reform, but we're not there yet,' Obama said in a brief statement from the White House. 'Now is the time to dig in and work even harder to get this done.'

The newest bill is the only one of five potential versions that does not include a controversial government-run insurance option, and the only bill that purports to reduce the huge US budget deficit, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

'Ours is a balanced plan that can pass the Senate,' said Senator Max Baucus, the Democratic chairman of the 23-member committee. 'This is our opportunity to make history.'

The bill is estimated to cost 829 billion dollars over 10 years. It would for the first time force people to buy health insurance, extend coverage to nearly 30 million people currently uninsured, increase government subsidies for the poor and expand competition among insurers in a bid to lower costs.

But the reforms are still disputed. Most conservatives argue the legislation does little to lower health costs for the average family and amounts to heavy government encroachment on a largely private industry.

Obama has lobbied heavily for the first major overhaul of the US health care sector in more than four decades. He wants a final bill passed by the end of the year.

Baucus and two fellow-Democrats spent months in closed-door meetings trying to find a compromise with three potential Republican supporters. The committee then held weeks of public meetings, adopting 41 amendments to the legislation.

In the end only one Republican senator, Olympia Snowe, offered cautious support for the Baucus bill. She said the US public 'want us to continue working' on the reforms and warned she could still oppose the final Senate version.

'When history calls, history calls,' she said. 'I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress ... to solve the monumental issues of our time.'

Snowe said the bill included many bipartisan measures, including provisions to prevent insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions or dropping older clients as their health deteriorates.

But many Republicans fear that any hard-won compromises could be erased as the bill is merged in the coming weeks with a costlier version approved by the Senate Health Committee.

'We can now see clearly that the bill continues its march leftward,' said Senator Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the committee. The legislation 'is already moving on a slippery slope to more and more government control of health care.'

The lower House of Representatives is considering its own proposals. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has vowed to include in her bill a government-run insurance option, which is fiercely opposed by Republicans and has divided Obama's own party.

The so-called public option was left out of the finance committee's bill, which instead proposes creating consumer-owned insurance co-operatives that would be subsidized by the government.