Senate Finance Passes Health Care Reform Bill. Public Option Still AWOL
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The Senate Finance Committee this afternoon approved what one panel member called “a down payment” on health care reform. By a 14-9 vote, the committee approved a bill that Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) says is ”a down payment and…the start of reforms.”
Joining all 13 Democrats on the committee was Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).
The committee bill, crafted for the most part by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), provides important insurance industry reforms and improvements in how health care is delivered and paid for with a focus on quality over quantity.
Send a Letter Today Urging Congress to Pass Quality Health Care Reform
Local unions, central labor councils, state federations and national unions are redoubling their efforts to ensure health care reform legislation—which could be on the Senate floor as early as Oct. 13 and in the full House later in the month—is real reform that
- Controls costs.
- Provides guaranteed coverage.
- Holds insurance companies accountable.
- Includes a public health insurance plan option.
- Requires all employers to pay their fair share.
- Rejects new taxes that would hurt working families—who already are being crushed by soaring health costs.
Please join union members across the nation in writing your senators and member of Congress to tell them to pass real health care reform. It’s critical working families speak up and provide a loud counter voice to the health insurance industry’s money and influence. Congress needs to hear from people who can tell their lawmakers about their personal struggles with a broken health care system and why we need real health care reform.
Rockefeller’s Public Option Killed in Senate Finance’s Health Care Bill
UPDATE: Schumer’s public option amendment got killed as well, 10-13, with Baucus, Conrad and Lincoln voting against it. Disgrace.
Looks like one version of public option just got killed in the Senate Finance Committee. Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s public option amendment, the strongest of the public option amendments offered, was just voted down 15-8, with five Democrats voting against it: Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Tom Carper (Del.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.).
As Rockefeller said before the vote:
Why would we not do this? People come second and the profits come first if we’re against this.
Are Industry Lobbyists Raising Our Health Care Premiums?
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While the Senate Finance Committee is slogging through more than 530 amendments to Sen. Max Baucus’ flawed health care reform bill, more than 2,700 lobbyists are working overtime to protect the private health insurance industry and other health care corporations.
Protecting their health industry clients means blocking a public health insurance plan option, derailing strong health care cost controls and gutting tough new health care rules that would put people before profits.
In trying to kill the public option, insurance industry lobbyists are thumbing their nose at the American public, who strongly support a public option. A New York Times/CBS poll released today found that 65 percent of respondents want a public health care option, while only 26 percent oppose such a plan.
Thousands Rally, Say We Can’t Wait for Health Care Reform
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Coming from unions, community organizations and all walks of life, nearly 10,000 supporters of health care reform gathered on Capitol Hill today to send a strong message: We demand affordable, high-quality health care for all, and we aren’t waiting any longer.
Every corner of the Upper Senate Park on Capitol Hill was filled this afternoon with union members, health care advocates and community activists from scross the country, and they heard from not only members of Congress and union leaders, but also from nurses, small business owners, workers and parents who told compelling stories about why we need health care reform.
More Voices from AFL-CIO Health Care Survey and Other Health Care Reform News
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So far, more than 17,000 people have taken the AFL-CIO’s 2009 Health Care for America Survey and nearly 5,000 have told us their personal stories of struggles with the nation’s broken health care system. There’s still time for you to take the survey and tell your story.
Meanwhile, there are new developments in the fight to win health care reform—or, in the case of corporate health care interests and their allies, defeat health care reform.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an anti-trust investigation into the health insurance industry.
- “Harry and Louise”—the health insurance ad campaign against health care reform in the 1990s—may be reborn in North Carolina.
- Robert Borosage warns that health insurers and “Big Pharma” are ready “to scare the hell out of Americans.”
- The Alliance for Retired Americans says don’t forget Medicare in the reform debate.
- Union Plus has a new program to help working families faced with big hospital bills.
Now, here are a few voices from the Health Care for America Survey.
