Amended Health Care Law Gets Congress Approval
Finally, the health care law has been passed in the House of Representatives Thursday with some amendments to issues that had emerged during the reconciliation stage.
It has been sent to President Obama with the “fixes” made after the health care overhaul had been signed into law.
No matter how hard the Republicans tried to derail the bill, it was finally passed after lengthy debated and discussions, with 56 to 43 votes. The bill meant to improve health care provisions in the United States had been a matter of great discontent between the Republicans and many of the Democrats.
The Republicans were first unhappy with some provisions in the health care reform bill, among which state funding of abortion topped the list. When the Democrats could get it passed in the House on Sunday, the bill went to President Obama, who did not want to delay signing it into law. But that was not enough. The Republicans, trying to find some flaws in the health care reform, were not ready to accept it; they even succeeded to some extent when they raised objections to some of the flaws in the education provisions.
However, the Democrats would not let go the bill so easily, for which they had been struggling for the last so many months. It only required a simple majority to pass the landmark legislation, and the Democratrs overcame Republican opposition and made some amendments to the healthcare overhaul on Thursday night and then send the same to President Obama.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), one of the torchbearers of the health care overhaul, was reported as saying,"Franklin Roosevelt identified four freedoms: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Today, in many ways we are fulfilling that last of the great freedoms, the fear that you or your family could suffer a healthcare crisis."
However, the historic health care bill has been criticized by many House members as an “unwarranted expansion of federal authority over healthcare.”
Even during the final phase, there were some Democrats who voted against the bill, including three in the Senate and 32 in the House Thursday. The Democrat Senators included Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Due to hospitalization, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) could not vote.
The 153-page reconciliation package made several big changes to the health care bill, which included the following:
·Expansion of state subsidies to be provided for low- and moderate-income groups so that they can buy health insurance.
·Scaling back the 40% excise tax on "Cadillac" insurance plans.
·Imposition of a new tax on the couples who make over $250,000.
·Increase in federal aid to states so that they expand their Medicaid programs.
·Gradual bridging of the gap in Medicare prescription coverage or "doughnut hole," which sucks thousands of dollars from millions of senior citizens.
Overall, the reconciliation package and health care law will cover about 32 million Americans by 2019. The coverage expansion will prove costly initially, as in the first decade, about $938 billion are needed to expand Medicaid, provide tax credits for small businesses so that they can cover their employees, and making a provision for insurance subsidies to those who cannot get benefits at work.
