US Senate votes on final passage of landmark health bill – Yahoo! News

Thursday, December 24th, 2009 at 8:44 am

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
Senators are expected to give President Barack Obama an early Christmas present on Thursday by voting through sweeping legislation on his top domestic priority, remaking the US health care system.

Barring an unforeseen last-minute hiccup, 58 Democratic senators and two independents will give Obama the 60 votes he needs to pass the bill, which has still to be reconciled with a separate House of Representatives version.

The final vote had originally been planned for late Christmas Eve, but Senate leaders clinched a plan to allow weary staff and lawmakers to get home earlier for the holidays as ice storms headed for the Midwest.

With passage considered a near-certainty, attention has narrowed on negotiations to forge a compromise between the final Senate bill and the House of Representatives version of the legislation, approved on November 7.

They differ on several points, and high-profile Obama allies have openly stated preferences for key chunks of the House version, setting up potentially damaging Democratic in-fighting ahead of crucial 2010 mid-term elections.

The headline battle looms over the provision of a government-backed "public option" to compete with private insurers. This measure was stripped from the Senate bill but remains in the House version. Related article: Key provisions in US Senate health overhaul

Another bone of contention is the House bill's tougher restrictions on federal funds subsidizing abortions, with pro-choice lawmakers denouncing the limits and centrist Democrats saying they will withhold support without them.

Obama, conscious of how much political capital he has invested in trying to pass health care reform — a hot-button issue in America that generations have failed to address — insists the Senate bill contains most of what he wants.

"I'd say we did really well," he told National Public Radio on Wednesday.

The United States is the world's richest nation but the only industrialized democracy that does not provide health care coverage to all of its citizens.

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