Differences Between the House and Senate Health Care Reform Bills
The House and Senate legislation for supposed health care reform are very similar and only differ largely in a few different areas and those areas are a public option plan, how to pay for this new system and abortion rights and coverage.
The House bill for health care reform is more of a reform and actually includes a pseudo public option that would act as a giant Medicaid plan for all Americans choosing to enroll in that level of coverage. Even though that isn’t a true public option it is light years ahead of where the Senate bill stands today.
The Senate bill has no such offering and really is nothing more than a big business mandate to order you and me into having to purchase over-priced unaffordable insurance or pay a much cheaper fine at the end of the year.
Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent representative from Vermont introduced a true public option on the floor of the Senate a couple weeks ago, and republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma requested to have the entire 700 plus page bill read aloud. Now while I am a fan of all the Senators reading each bill, something Tom should have requested during the Iraq War and the first Bailout for Wall Street, this was obviously a ploy to stall progress. Why would Tom Coburn do such a thing? Number one him and his on the take for-profit colleagues in the Senate would not have to vote yes or no for a real public option, what the majority of Americans want across this country; and number two Tom Coburn has already current over $700,000 for his campaign by the health industry for the 2010 election cycle.
I guess since Tom Coburn has favorite over $4 million dollars from the health industry over his entire career he was obligated to be such a prick and stand in the way of actually having a public option being voted on for the first time ever on the floor of the senate. If they didn’t have to vote no, they can’t be held responsible for failing the American public again, or so they think.
Another area of difference is how these new giant pro health care insurance reforms will be paid for. The House plan would want to raise taxes on the wealthiest of Americans making over a million dollars a year. The Senate plan wants to impose a tax on top tier health insurance plans, which will only affect anyone lucky enough to be able to afford top notch health care. It is such a shame that your health is reliant on your income and not something included in a society that deems itself so moralistic it invades innocent countries in the name of terror.
The third biggest dissimilarity is the issue of abortion, the House bill is straight forward, and insurance plans can or cannot cover abortion regardless of who is paying for it. Why that decision is given to a health insurance company, which is just a corporation of middle men who merely oversee the transaction of payments and not by free women is beyond me. The Senate plan goes even further in giving health insurance companies the choice to cover or not conceal abortions but also lets the state you live in decide also, so any republican state would probably not cover abortions.
Over all both plans aren’t even close to offering what the majority of Americans want in this country, a universal health care option where everyone is covered, everyone is given satisfactory care, and it is all paid with by already existing tax dollars that are currently being misused on wars, bailouts for wall street, space exploration, and a million other things less important than the health of yourself, your family, and your neighbors in this great republic of ours.