Senate Democrats hope to retain 'Sweet 60' to pass health care reform

By Money Matters Editors

Senate Democrats late Sunday night were poised to begin a test vote for the health care reform bill, now that U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, was granted certain concessions and agreed to support the bill on Saturday

If the health care reform bill passes, it would be the biggest social policy advance by the United States since the passage of Medicare in 1965, and it would rank third behind the latter and the establishment of Social Security of 1935 in terms of social safety net significance.

Among the bill’s key features, the bill would 1) prohibit discrimination by insurance companies due to medical condition/history, 2) provide substantial subsidies for those who don’t have health insurance from their employer, and 3) offer much-needed tax breaks for small businesses who do provide coverage.  The bill is a major accomplishment: it’s big change and it’s big news. The bill is not perfect – no legislation is. Further, it’s a starter home not a mansion, and it will be improved in subsequent years, but one paramount fact is that about 30 million more Americans without insurance will have insurance eventually as a result of this most-needed legislation.

The bill would also cut waste and redundancy in Medicare, while broadening Medicaid eligibility to insure more poor Americans. And it would lower health insurance premium costs for the vast majority of Americans, provided the system adds the millions of healthy, generally-younger Americans who are choosing to go without insurance now. Under the new law, insurance would be required: as the pool of the insured becomes larger, health care costs would be spread out over millions and millions of more premium payers, lowering premiums for most Americans.

Of course, Money Matters Editors recommends that the Senate approve the health care reform legislation post-haste, and that the differences with the House bill be quickly reconciled in conference committee, followed by two quick House, Senate votes and President Obama’s signature. Universal health care is long overdue in the United States: every Western European economy has a national health care plan or an equivalent. And Americans have been waiting a long, long time: President Teddy Roosevelt first proposed a national health care insurance program in 1909.

Money Matter Editors thinks waiting 100 years is a long enough wait for the American people.