Health care bill could slow in Senate

November 9, 7:07 AMAtlanta Headlines ExaminerTodd DeFeo

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The House this weekend passed a massive health care bill, but the measure may not move forward in the Senate.

“We have a mission, a mandate and a moral obligation to lead this nation into a new era where health care is a right and not a privilege,” U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., said on the House floor. “This … vote is a significant step towards affordable, quality health care for all,” U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., said in a statement.

Republicans have a different take on matters.

“The massive, 1.3 trillion dollar, government takeover of health care that passed the House of Representatives tonight is a deplorable and unconstitutional attempt by the President and Democrat leadership to take over a huge sector of our economy and an important part of Americans’ lives, while putting our children and grandchildren even further into debt,” U.S. Rep. Paul Broun said in a statement.

“This bill is going to wreck our economy and destroy American jobs, it will increase taxes, increase health care costs on all Americans, and create over one hundred new government programs and bureaucracies,” Broun added. “Throughout the entire process, there was no effort on the part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi to include Republican alternatives in her two thousand page bill, especially those of the eleven Republican physicians and medical professionals in Congress. It’s clear that this plan should have been crafted in a bipartisan manner, but Speaker Pelosi even refused many Democrat alternatives.”

Last week, the chief of staff for U.S. Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., did not respond to inquiries about the legislation, including whether the Congressman would read the entire 2,000-page bill before casting a vote. Scott voted in favor of the bill.

But, the bill may face an uphill climb in the Senate, in part because of concerns over the ballooning national debt. “The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on Face the Nation, according to The Associated Press.

“Our fiscal house is deteriorating dangerously,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said recently. “Health care has contributed significantly to this fiscal crisis.”