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Health bill passes the House of Respresentatives, now it's up to the Senate
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the House passage of the health care reform bill
As House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi foresaw, the proposed health care reform bill passed the House of Representatives.
At 11:15 p.m, on Saturday the House of Representatives voted to pass their health insurance reform bill. Despite countless attempts over nearly a century, no chamber of Congress has ever before passed comprehensive health reform. This is history.
Surpassing the 218 needed votes, receiving a whopping 220 votes, including one nod from a republican, Joseph Cao of Louisiana
This bill will not be called bipartisan in the books, House Republicans were nearly unanimous in opposing the 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion legislation. 39 Democrats opposed the bill.
"We are going to have a complete government takeover of our health care system faster than you can say, `this is making me sick,'" said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich.
The controversial legislation includes that insurance industry practices such as denying coverage because of medical conditions would be banned, and insurers would no longer be able to charge higher premiums on the basis of gender or medical history.
The measure would create a federally regulated marketplace where consumers could shop for coverage. In the bill's most controversial provision, the government would sell insurance, although the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that premiums for it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private companies.
And the battle for reform continues.
On Fox News, Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said that "if the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote because I believe the debt can break America and send us into a recession that's worse than the one we're fighting our way out of today."
On CBS, Face the Nation, Senator, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a statement saying, "We realize the strong will for reform that exists, and we are energized that we stand closer than ever to reforming our broken health insurance system."
According to Reid, the Senate will more than likely not vote on the bill until next year, but the Democrats will try to pass the bill as quickly as possible.
"The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday.
Shortly after the bill passed the House of Representatives, President Obama stated, "Now the United States Senate must follow suit and pass its version of the legislation. I am absolutely confident it will, and I look forward to signing comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year."
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