The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 today to back a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system, clearing the way for a historic congressional showdown this fall over how Americans receive and pay for their medical care. Thirteen Democrats and one Republican, Maine’s Olympia Snowe, voted to approve the measure. It would require nearly everyone to obtain coverage, bar insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and make insurance plans easier to afford by providing lower-income consumers with financial help. It would cost an estimated $829 billion over 10 years and be paid for by taxes, fees and reductions in Medicare costs.
Democrats hailed the vote as an important milestone, the first time in memory that such a comprehensive health care revision has gone this far in Congress. “This is our opportunity to make history,” said Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
President Barack Obama said the vote “has brought us significantly closer to achieving the core objectives I laid out early in September,” but he also warned that “we’re not there yet.”