U.S. Senate Passes Health Insurance Reform

By Stephen Kopko

Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States – In its first Christmas Eve vote since 1895, the United States Senate passed a reform bill that will change the health care system in the United States. The bill will provide health care coverage to millions of Americans that are uninsured now. 

The Senate passed the health care bill along party lines. The final tally of the vote was sixty to thirty-nine. All fifty eight Democrats and two Independents voted to send the bill to the Conference Committee with the House of Representatives. The Senate version of the health care bill is similar in some aspects to the version passed earlier by the House. However, there are some notable differences between the two pieces of legislation. 

The Senate version of the health care reform bill will cost approximately $871 billion dollars. The House version of the bill costs approximately one trillion dollars. Both costs would be paid over a period of ten years. Under the Senate version of the health care reform bill about fifteen million more people would be added to the health insurance rolls.

Under both the Senate version of the bill and the House version of the bill, approximately thirty million more people would have health insurance. Both versions would prevent suppliers of health insurance from denying people coverage because of pre-existing condition. Insurers would be barred from increasing interest rates because of a person’s gender or past medical history. Both versions of the health insurance bill would make it easier for small businesses and the unemployed to purchase coverage.

Nevertheless, there are major differences between the two pieces of legislation. The most revealing difference between the two versions is that the House has a public option while the Senate does not. The public option is something that the Democrats have fought hard for since taking the majority in both the House and the Senate. Another striking difference between the two versions is how health insurance reform is going to be paid. Under the House version, those people making five hundred thousand dollars or more per year and those families making more than a million dollars a year will pay a five point four income tax surcharge. Under the Senate bill, health insurance companies would be subject a forty percent tax when they only offer the most premium plans that only the wealthy could afford. 

For more information, please see:

CNN – Senate Approves Health Care Reform Bill – 24 December 2009

MSNBC – Senate Passes Historic Health Care Legislation – 24 December 2009

NYTIMES – Senate Passes Health Care Overhaul on Party-Line Vote – 24 December 2009

Author: Impunity Watch Archive