{"id":2799,"date":"2009-12-25T11:22:59","date_gmt":"2009-12-25T09:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=2799"},"modified":"2009-12-25T11:23:32","modified_gmt":"2009-12-25T09:23:32","slug":"health-bills-passage-is-just-a-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/health-bills-passage-is-just-a-start\/","title":{"rendered":"Health bill&#8217;s passage is just a start"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Senate passage of landmark health-care legislation yesterday took the Democrats&#8217; long drive to enact the biggest social-policy change in decades into its final lap &#8211; a high-stakes effort to reconcile differences between House and Senate versions of the bill.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/barack_obama.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2800\" title=\"Barack Obama\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/barack_obama-280x210.jpg\" alt=\"Barack Obama\" width=\"280\" height=\"210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/barack_obama-280x210.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/barack_obama.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 280px) 100vw, 280px\" \/><\/a><\/strong>With Republicans boycotting, the majority Democrats in the two chambers must grapple with multiple disparities &#8211; on abortion, taxes, and the government&#8217;s role in the health insurance market.<\/p>\n<p>But they are under political pressure to act quickly on President Obama&#8217;s goal of overhauling a medical system that provides world-class health care for many but is marked by huge gaps in coverage, uneven quality, and skyrocketing costs.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday&#8217;s 60-39 vote on strict party lines came in an unusual Christmas Eve session, with exhausted senators gathering at 7 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>It was the 25th day of debate, and Vice President Biden made a rare appearance to oversee the roll call.<\/p>\n<p>Obama hailed the action. &#8220;With today&#8217;s vote, we are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country,&#8221; he said after the vote. &#8220;Our challenge, then, is to finish the job. We can&#8217;t doom another generation of Americans to soaring costs and eroding coverage and exploding deficits.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One of the most divisive issues among Democrats &#8211; a new government-run insurance program known as the public option &#8211; is now effectively off the table. And for all the differences between the two bills, they have vast expanses of common ground.<\/p>\n<p>The bill that goes back to both chambers after the House-Senate conference will almost certainly increase by at least 30 million the number of people covered by government or private health insurance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate passage of landmark health-care legislation yesterday took the Democrats&#8217; long drive to enact the biggest social-policy change in decades into its final lap &#8211; a high-stakes effort to reconcile differences between House and Senate versions of the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,80,63,107,118],"tags":[633,3653,629,1382,3734,3733],"class_list":["post-2799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-health","category-hot","tag-america-barack-obama","tag-barack","tag-barack-obama","tag-barack-obama-america","tag-senate-passage","tag-senate-passage-of-landmark-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}