House OKs health reform bill

UPDATED:

The Democrat-led House late Saturday passed landmark legislation that would fulfill President Obama’s call to dramatically reshape the country’s health care system, passing it with just one Republican vote and establishing a new abortion ban that promises to further complicate the reform debate.

With the help of a last-minute pitch from President Obama, Democratic leaders overcame a late abortion fight and cobbled together 220 votes to pass health care reform, which many other Congresses have tried, but none has accomplished.

Related TWT article: Obama: It’s the Senate’s turn on health care

Along the way a bipartisan group of lawmakers who oppose abortion rights successfully included a ban on federally funded abortions in the government-run plan and some private insurance plans. Supporters of abortion rights called it a dramatic assault on an existing practice, promising to stir interest groups and further inflame the reform debate in the coming weeks.

Democrats in the House chamber cheered as the vote tally hit 218, the threshold for final passage of the reform bill, shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday. Cheers filled the chamber again as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced, “The bill is passed,” and brought the gavel down.

“America and the American people are what this was about. This is not about us,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat. “This is about people, not parties. This was about every American having access to quality, affordable health care.”

The final tally was 220-215. The sole Republican “yes” vote came from Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana.

“That equals bipartisan,” Mrs. Pelosi said with a laugh.

The Democrats’ two-vote cushion included lawmakers who won special elections this week in New York and California.

The 10-year, $1.2 trillion bill would establish a government-run public insurance plan, require nearly all employers to provide insurance, institute insurance industry reforms and distribute tax credits to help poor and middle class families buy insurance. It would cover 36 million of the nation’s uninsured population.

The legislation would be paid for with cuts to the Medicare program, which Democrats said would eliminate waste and fraud, and new taxes on individuals with incomes more than $500,000 or couples making more than $1 million.

Republicans opposed the legislation, arguing that the Medicare cuts would hurt seniors and that the public insurance plan would put the government in the middle of the patient-doctor relationship.

“The American people have spoken, and they’ve made it perfectly clear that the health care bill that’s on the floor today, they want no part of,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said Saturday morning. “We’re going to do everything we can to try to stop this from becoming law and urge the Speaker to work with us in a bipartisan way to enact common sense, step-by-step reform to make health insurance more affordable for more Americans.”

The House rejected an alternative Republican health care plan in a nearly party-line 258-176 vote. The Republican proposal had no tax increases and would have lowered insurance premiums by creating high-risk insurance pools, allowing workers to buy health insurance across state lines and rewriting medical malpractice law.

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