Transcripts

Senate Finance Committee Approves $829B Health Care Plan

SUSIE GHARIB: Another historic moment today for health care reform. The Senate Finance Committee voted to approve an $829 billion plan making health insurance coverage available to millions of Americans. The vote was along party lines with one exception: Maine Republican Senator Olympia Snowe. This is a major breakthrough for President Obama who has made health care reform his biggest domestic priority. But as Darren Gersh reports, there's still a long way to go before the bill becomes law.

DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Health care reform has never gotten this far before but there are many more challenges ahead. Maine's Olympia Snowe made that clear when she cast the lone Republican vote in favor of the Senate Finance Committee bill.

SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE (R) MAINE: Affordability remains and continues to remain my paramount concern. I think that if there is anything that we have to do Mr. Chairman is to continue to wrestle with that issue, to absolutely insure that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance plans.

GERSH: So what happens next? First, the Senate Finance Committee's bill must be combined with another bill passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. That combined bill must then pass the entire Senate and be in turn, combined with the bill that passes the House of Representatives. At each stage of that process, Republican opponents like Kansas Senator Pat Roberts warn the bill will get more and more liberal.

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R) KANSAS: A government-run insurance plan, higher taxes on American families and small businesses, a job-killing employer pay or pay tax, costly insurance market rating restrictions.

GERSH: Democrats look at a public insurance option differently, calling it a check on private insurance companies. Supporters like Senator Chuck Schumer plan to continue pushing it.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D) NEW YORK: To cut costs, we must have a public option in the final bill. It is the most effective way to cut insurance costs period.

GERSH: With so many possible changes ahead, just what has been settled? Chris Jennings, a health care adviser to former President Bill Clinton, says the basic structure has been set.

CHRIS JENNINGS, FORMER CLINTON HEALTH CARE ADVISER: The debate really is exactly what the insurance reforms are, how do you enforce the individual requirements, how much subsidies do you provide to make it affordable and exactly what are your financing sources? But those key components that lay the foundations were really necessary prerequisites to even have a serious debate.

GERSH: While history was indeed made with today's vote, there is much more history that will have to be made before this bill becomes law. Darren Gersh, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.