TO PREDICT the result of the US Senate finance committee’s vote on his healthcare Bill yesterday, you had only to see committee chairman Senator Max Baucus beaming before the photographers’ autodrives as he opened the five-hour session.
A major hurdle on the path to healthcare reform in the US was about to be overcome, with the committee voting 14 to nine to pass the €829 billion, 10-year healthcare Bill.
Mr Baucus must have known that after hiding her cards until the last minute, the lone Republican Senator Olympia Snowe would vote Yes, providing the precious label “bipartisan”.
Even an 11th-hour sally from the healthcare industry, which on Monday released a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers purporting to show that the Baucus plan would raise healthcare costs for Americans, seemed to suit the senator from Idaho.
Mr Baucus has been widely criticised for accepting $3.97 million in contributions from the healthcare industry over five years. By attacking the Baucus plan, the insurance companies seemed to refute accusations that he’d “sold out” and was “in the pocket” of healthcare moguls.
Mr Baucus recounted the long, winding road that led the committee to yesterday’s vote in the wood and marble hearing room.
He had worked for two years “to craft a package that will get the 60 (Senate) votes it needs to pass”.
To that end, he had chaired 20 full-blown hearings, and conducted 31 meetings lasting 61 hours with a six-member panel.
It had been 22 years since the finance committee devoted so much time to a single Bill.
The House and Senate must now hold separate votes on separate Bills, followed by conference, before legislation reaches President Barack Obama’s desk. In an optimistic moment, Mr Obama said yesterday he believes he will sign before the end of this year.
As senator John Kerry reminded the committee, Teddy Roosevelt first proposed universal healthcare in 1912. The wheels of American democracy can turn very slowly.
A recent study by scientists at Harvard University found that more than 44,000 Americans die every year for lack of health insurance.
Senator Kent Conrad reminded the committee that America spends one in six dollars on healthcare. US healthcare is the most expensive on earth, noted senator Thomas Carper. And 14,000 people lose their coverage daily.
The Baucus Bill runs to over 1,000 pages. To hear Republicans and Democrats debate its merits in committee yesterday, it was hard to believe they were talking about the same document.
The Democrats were unanimous in denouncing the PricewaterhouseCooper report as inaccurate and a cheap shot.
The Republicans harped on three of Mr Obama’s promises which they claim are broken by the Baucus plan: no tax increases for families living on less than $250,000 a year; that people can keep their present doctor and health plan if they so desire, and that Medicare (government insurance for the elderly) will not be tampered with.
Mr Baucus outlined the benefits of his own plan. It will, he said, reduce the budget deficit by $81 billion over 10 years, and raise the percentage of Americans with insurance coverage from 83 to 94 per cent.
The Republican Senator Jim Bunning wasn’t buying it: “25 million people will remain uninsured,” he noted. “That is hardly universal coverage; 46 million is a moral outrage, but 25 million means the problem is solved?”
Senator Baucus listed the main innovations of his Bill: “No individual could be denied insurance coverage . . . because of a pre-existing health condition. Our Bill would prohibit insurance companies from discriminating on the basis of gender or health status . . . No longer would insurance companies be able to drop coverage when people get sick.”
Senator Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the committee, mumbled and grumbled that the Bill was “already moving on the slippery slope towards more government control . . . We can now see clearly that the Bill continues its march leftward.”
The lawmakers tossed around millions, billions and trillions in dizzying succession. “The insurance companies are laughing all the way to the bank,” said John D Rockefeller IV, who despite his millionaire’s pedigree is one of the Senate’s more left-wing members. Insurance companies increased premiums 131 per cent over the past decade, Mr Rockefeller said.
“The real Bill is currently being written behind closed doors in the Senate and White House,” warned the Republican senator Orrin Hatch. “Washington is again talking through both sides of its mouth. Only Washington could try to sell a promise like this with a straight face.”
Through the long months of healthcare debate, the White House and senator Baucus have done their utmost to win the support of Ms Snowe. She said healthcare reform was too important to let it die in committee, but she wanted to be reassured that there would be “no significant variance in interpretation.”
(Several Democratic senators said yesterday they believed the final version will include a “public option” — anathema to Republicans.)
If the final legislation strays too far from the Baucus plan, Ms Snowe warned, she will vote against it.
Two white-haired senior citizens, both opponents of the Baucus Bill, stood vigil on the pavement outside, pink plastic buttocks emerging from their hospital patients’ smocks. “The message is that we’re not covered,” explained Danielle Greene, of the Progressive Democrats of America.
“What we need is healthcare reform, not insurance reform. We need the money to go to care – not insurance,” Ms Greene continued. “We want single payer, like the Europeans have. We want what the civilised world has. What we have is shameful.”