Health care bill set for US law as it passes tough Senate vote

Published on Monday 21 December 2009 21:46

LANDMARK health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama passed its sternest Senate test yesterday, overcoming Republican delaying tactics on a 60-40 vote that all but assures its passage later this week.

"Let's make history," Democratic senator Tom Harkin said shortly before the bill's supporters demonstrated their command of the Senate floor in an extraordinary holiday season showdown.

The bill would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who now lack it, while banning insurance company practices such as denial of benefits on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

The atmosphere was intensely partisan, but the outcome preordained as senators cast their votes from their desks, a practice reserved for issues of particular importance.

The United States is the only wealthy industrialised nation that does not have universal health care coverage.

Health insurance in the US is provided primarily by employers, and the ranks of the uninsured have been growing amid job losses in the recent recession.

Republicans conceded Democrats had the majority of votes, but said they had not heard the end of it.

"One can stop it, or everyone will own it," said Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, a thinly disguised warning that his party will use the issue in the 2010 mid-term congressional elections.

In a strong attack on Mr Obama, he said he was "a president who was voted into office on the promise of change. He said he wanted lower premiums. That changed. He said he wouldn't raise taxes. That changed. He said he wanted lower costs. That changed. He said he wouldn't cut Medicare benefits. That changed."

But majority leader Harry Reid countered with a list of Americans whom he said have suffered at the hands of insurance companies.

"On average, an American dies from lack of health insurance every ten minutes.

"That means that in the short time I have been speaking, our broken system has claimed another life."