Senate passes Health Care Bill, 60-39

[Dash]

Without a single Republican vote, the United States Senate passed a sweeping health care reform bill in a landslide, shortly after 7:00 in the morning on Christmas Eve. After months of intense back and forth, and more than three weeks of continuous floor debate, the bill moved through the Senate by a gaping 60-39 margin.

 

The House of Representatives previously passed a much stronger version of reform with a tighter 220-215 margin. The two versions will now be merged in conference committee negotiations, with the House pushing for more generous subsidies for those required to buy insurance and the Senate attempting to hold the line. The cross-Capitol negotiations will not involve the Republican Party.

 

Though it appears that the bill might not move into conference committee negotiations. Roll Call reports that Senate Republicans "continued to make life difficult" for Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), by blocking efforts to name conferees to negotiate a final version of the health care bill.

 

The Senate debate of the health care bill is the second-longest in history, according to Politico. The health care bill was debated for 25 consecutive days and is surpassed by just one more debate: the one that preceded the U.S. decision to enter World War I.

 

Read the rest here.

 

Now its time to merge the bills.

Edited December 26, 2009 by Dash

[JYD]

It's about time we are making an attempt to fix the health care crisis.

[EastCoastNiner]

It's about time we are making an attempt to fix the health care crisis.

 

It's not a crisis considering an extremely small percentage of Americans don't have health care, and a small percentage actually want to have Universal Health Care.

[JYD]

It's not a crisis considering an extremely small percentage of Americans don't have health care, and a small percentage actually want to have Universal Health Care.

Isn't it 46 million people without it?

 

And it depends who you ask, and what source. On MSNBC I've watched shows where they say 60% of the country wants it, and I've watched shows on FOX News when they say 35% want it...so, really, I could care less about the numbers - doesn't matter what your political stance is, every politician has admitted to it being a crisis...the approach to fix the problem is obviously different in their ideaology, which is fine, but you're pretty much retarded if you can't recognize the problem.

[EastCoastNiner]

Isn't it 46 million people without it?

 

And it depends who you ask, and what source. On MSNBC I've watched shows where they say 60% of the country wants it, and I've watched shows on FOX News when they say 35% want it...so, really, I could care less about the numbers - doesn't matter what your political stance is, every politician has admitted to it being a crisis...the approach to fix the problem is obviously different in their ideaology, which is fine, but you're pretty much retarded if you can't recognize the problem.

 

I want everyone to be covered, but not at the cost of [expletive]ing our country up the [expletive].

[JYD]

I want everyone to be covered, but not at the cost of [expletive]ing our country up the [expletive].

Ok, I can understand and respect your thinking on that...but at the end of the day this country certainly has a crisis. Whether you want universal health care or not isn't even close to what I am saying.

[Real Deal]

Kinda funny how doctors feel about this, even in Kansas and Oklahoma.

 

My eye doctor wants Universal Healthcare, badly. He said it will help with procedures they have to wait on, for weeks to months, that they need to do immediately. The more they wait, the more they'll have to do to the eye.

 

And, my primary physician (in Kansas) says it's very sad that hardly anyone who shoots down the bill knows anything about it. He's for it as well, saying that it's a very sad thing when he has to do "what's second best" for someone who can't afford the best procedures and treatments because they either don't have insurance, or their insurance doesn't cover something in particular, and he sends them out of the office with his fingers crossed.

 

People sure the hell don't care about anyone else, they only care about themselves. I guess that's why many in the US look down on other countries, though, and fail to accept change. I bet they'd be begging for change if they had a life-changing disease...but when they are healthy as a horse, no [expletive] way.