Senate Committee Rejects Public Option for Health Overhaul
The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday rejected a proposal to include a new government-run insurance plan in its health-care legislation, but debate over a proposed public plan isn’t expected to end at the committee.
By a 15-8 vote, the committee rejected an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.), that would create a public health-insurance option. Under Mr. Rockefeller’s amendment, a government-run plan would inherit Medicare’s network of doctors and hospitals and pay them based on Medicare payment rates for its first two years.
All Republicans on the panel voted against Mr. Rockefeller’s amendment, in addition to five Democrats: Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus of Montana, Bill Nelson of Florida, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Thomas Carper of Delaware.
But don’t get too excited yet. The healthcare bills, in their various incarnations, are still in the works.
We really need to start facing the issue of expenditures in health care. In the words of Dr. Eva Mor, “The administration of the existing health delivery system is bloated with waste and unnecessary cost. If information was shared by all providers of health services and all insurers by using computerized systems to store all medical records, it would cut costs and reduce errors that would save and improve lives.” http://www.ourblook.com/component/option,com_sectionex/Itemid,200076/id,8/view,category/#catid107
Money needs to be spent no matter what, if we are to get the health care system back on track. Finding a way to get literally affordable insurance to ever American is just another piece of the puzzle over time. Future generations deserve something better.
Money needs to be spent no matter what, if we are to get the health care system back on track. Finding a way to get literally affordable insurance to ever American is just another piece of the puzzle over time. Future generations deserve something better.
My concern with this healthcare reform, as an Independent, is that it’s all over the place, there are not enough specifics and it must be put into writing and as if “written in stone” so that not every illegal that comes to the US will get free healthcare and those that work hard all their citizen life in US pay for every “Tom, Dick and Harry”
Oops, it looks like Fausta just got the equivelant of a form letter in the first two comments.