7:00 AM…Christmas Eve…Capitol Hill…Washington D.C….The Obama-era Health Care Reform stands its final test.
The 92-year-old Senator Robert Byrd, squinted his eyes and straightened his tie. “Mr. President,” he said, pointing his raises right hand at the dome ceiling, “This is for my friend Ted Kennedy. Aye!”
And so the $871 billion bill passed brilliantly through Senate on a 60-39 landslide margin.
The new bill will be merged in conference committee negotiations with the more extreme version which already slid through the House of Representatives on a taut 220-215 margin. The cross-Capitol negotiations will not involve the Republican Party.
The bill provides billions in subsidies for low and middle class Americans to purchase private insurance. All Americans would be required to be insured unless they can demonstrate that they cannot afford to do so.
Also, the bill will phase in over the next several years, insurance industry regulations. Under these new guidelines, beginning in 2014, insurers will not be allowed to deny customers due to preexisting conditions and will not be allowed to cap annual or lifetime benefits.
Insurers succeeded in stripping a public insurance option from the Senate bill that would have competed with private insurance. In the absence of a public option, state insurance commissioners will be charged with keeping insurers in line.
We here at NaturalBuy.com are happy to hear this news and are cautiously hopeful that it is a new start that the Health Care in America continues to move in this positive direction.
Merry Christmas everybody…