Senators express hope for a health reform bill
Deep divides remain, but Democrats say everyone's talking
By Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Senators prepared to cast their first votes Wednesday on health-care reform, but even as partisan divisions hardened and contentious amendments stacked up, Democrats increasingly expressed optimism that they would succeed in passing a bill before Christmas.
The initial amendments offered illustrated the legislation's vast scope and lingering vulnerabilities. The first, co-sponsored by Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), would increase preventative health care for women at a 10-year cost of $940 million. One aim of the measure is to blunt concerns raised last month when an independent commission recommended that women undergo mammograms less frequently.
The second amendment, authored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), would strip out the bill's primary revenue source, nearly $500 billion in Medicare cost savings. Although AARP and other seniors groups have said otherwise, Republicans are attacking the cuts as a threat that could eventually shorten lives.
"They've paid all their working lives into the Medicare trust fund, and now they're in danger of having $483 billion cut out of it, which would eventually lead to rationing of health care for seniors in order to fund a new, government-run health-care system in America," McCain told reporters.
(More here.)
By Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Senators prepared to cast their first votes Wednesday on health-care reform, but even as partisan divisions hardened and contentious amendments stacked up, Democrats increasingly expressed optimism that they would succeed in passing a bill before Christmas.
The initial amendments offered illustrated the legislation's vast scope and lingering vulnerabilities. The first, co-sponsored by Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), would increase preventative health care for women at a 10-year cost of $940 million. One aim of the measure is to blunt concerns raised last month when an independent commission recommended that women undergo mammograms less frequently.
The second amendment, authored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), would strip out the bill's primary revenue source, nearly $500 billion in Medicare cost savings. Although AARP and other seniors groups have said otherwise, Republicans are attacking the cuts as a threat that could eventually shorten lives.
"They've paid all their working lives into the Medicare trust fund, and now they're in danger of having $483 billion cut out of it, which would eventually lead to rationing of health care for seniors in order to fund a new, government-run health-care system in America," McCain told reporters.
(More here.)
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