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Nov 9, 2009 7:57 pm US/Eastern
Health Care Reform Bill Goes To Senate
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
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Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) holds a news conference to announce the inclusion of the "public option" in the Senate's version of the health care reform legislation Oct. 26, 2009 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The House of Representatives approved a controversial health care reform measure over the weekend.
But that's only the beginning of what could be many more weeks of legislative wrangling.
"The bill is passed," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the chamber late Saturday night to great cheers.
Well, not so fast -- it's the Senate's turn, as the President noted.
"Now it falls on the United States Senate to take this baton and bring it to the finish line on behalf of the American people," Obama said.
"The Senate will chart its own path as it frequently does, almost invariably does," says Cliff Shannon, who served as chief of staff to two senators, including the late John Heinz.
"The Senate does move quite slowly especially on controversial issues," Shannon warns.
Ted Zimmer from the Consumer Health Coalition says most people think we need some kind of reform.
"They've seen their premiums go up year after year, especially in the last decade. Premiums have risen over four times faster than wages in Pennsylvania since the year 2000," notes Zimmer.
But there's lots of confusion -- especially over the so-called public option, a government health insurance plan supporters say would compete with private insurance to cover the uninsured.
"It's sad what people have been told and what they've been sold in some cases," he said.
The House voted to let states opt out of the public option -- but some senators prefer a trigger -- no government insurance unless private insurers fail to cover the uninsured.
"[Senate Majority Leader] Senator Reid has the job of trying, somehow or other, to extract from those two points of view just enough people to get his 60 votes to pass his bill, and it's going to be very interesting to see him balance that many angels on the head of a pin," says Shannon.
Like most things in Congress, particularly monumental and controversial issues like health care reform, it usually in the end comes down to politics. And nobody right now can really predict the outcome.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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