More Health Reform News!

According to the Washington AP here is an update on the health care legislation that is going on in Washington right now. Washington is trying to push the vote through before Christmas. A time when most Americans are only thinking of the holidays.

The legislation represented the culmination of a year's work for Democrats, pressed by President Barack Obama to remake the nation's health care system. Sadly this reform will only make insurance more expensive for those who have it.

Under Senate rules, Democrats needed 60 votes on three separate occasions to pass the measure. While it looked like this many not happen for while things feel in to place and Democrats were able to secure the 60 votes they needed.


Democrats hoped Republicans would relent in the face of a clear 60-vote majority, but if GOP critics choose to do so, they could delay a final vote on the bill until early Christmas Eve.

The House has already passed legislation, and attempts to work out a compromise are expected to begin in the days after Christmas.

The Senate legislation is predicted to extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who lack coverage and would ban industry practices such as denial of insurance on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. The Congressional Budget Office said it would reduce deficits by about $132 billion over a decade, and possibly much more in the 10 years that follow.

At its core, the legislation would create a new insurance exchange where consumers could shop for affordable coverage that complies with new federal guidelines. Most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, with subsidies available to help families making up to $88,000 in income afford the cost.

In a bow to Senate moderates, the measure lacks a government-run insurance option of the type that House Democrats placed in their bill. Instead, the estimated 26 million Americans purchasing coverage through new insurance exchanges would have the option of signing up for privately owned, nonprofit nationwide plans overseen by the same federal agency office that supervises the system used by federal employees and members of Congress.


Sen. Ben Nelson D-Nebraska won numerous changes, including tougher restrictions on abortion coverage and an estimated $45 million in federal Medicaid funds, enough to completely cover his state's costs of complying with an expansion of the program mandated by the bill.

Vermont and Massachusetts also won additional Medicaid funds; plastic surgeons were persuasive in their bid to strip out a proposed tax on elective plastic surgery; hospitals in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana won additional Medicare funds; and there was more money for hospitals in Hawaii to treat the uninsured.