Snowe's a Yes on Health Bill-for now

WASHINGTON -- Senator Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine, just announced she will vote in favor of the Senate Finance Committee health care bill, which the committee is considering today. She is likely to be the only member of the GOP to do so, and her support gives Democratic leaders a shot of momentum as they continue their efforts to pass a major health care bill this year.

The 10-year, $829-billion plan to overhaul the nation's health care system is expected to be approved today by the committee.

Snowe said the bill is not perfect and that she still has concerns, chiefly about whether the bill makes insurance affordable enough. But she said the proposal accomplishes many long-sought bipartisan goals, such as prohibiting insurers from refusing to cover sick people or charging them higher premiums, and that she believes voters want action.

"When history calls, history calls," she said.

Snowe warned that her vote in committee today is not an indicator of how she'll vote on the Senate floor, after the Finance bill is merged with another crafted by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and after senators attempt to amend it.

Quoting the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- "a fellow Mainer," she noted -- she said, "Great is the art of the beginning, but greater is the art of the ending."

"We should ... contemplate the decades of inaction that have brought us to this crossroads," Snowe told her colleagues.

"The status quo approach has produced a glaring common denominator, and that is, we have a problem that is growing worse, not better," she said.

Snowe likened the health care crisis to the Titanic, and the missed opportunity for the legendary boat's captain to move the vessel out of the way of danger. The difference is that "the captain did not know there was an iceberg. We do," Snowe said.

President Obama praised Snowe for being "extraordinarily diligent" in working with Democrats on the health care bill.

Snowe's vote is likely to give her more leverage with Democratic leadership during the merger and amendment process. Democrats desperately want at least one GOP vote to give a sliver of bipartisanship to the contentious bill, and may also need Snowe's vote to stop a potential filibuster. Democrats have 60 members in their caucus - technically enough to stop a filibuster - but conservative Democrats are balking at some elements of the developing bill, and Senator Robert Byrd's illness has made it unclear if the west Virginia Democrat will be well enough to attend the vote.

The expected approval by the Finance committee would push a remake of the U.S. health care system closer to reality than it has been in decades. Four other congressional committees finished their work before August and for months all eyes have been on the Finance panel, the one whose moderate makeup most closely resembles the Senate as a whole.

The legislation would, for the first time, require most Americans to purchase insurance and it also aims to hold down spiraling medical costs over the long term. Questions persist about whether it would truly provide access to affordable coverage, particularly for self employed people with solid middle class incomes.

Senator Max Baucus, D-Mont., the bill's sponsor and chairman of the Finance Committee, urged action today as the bill neared the pivotal vote in the committee.

"Ours is a balanced plan that can pass the Senate," declared Baucus. Health care legislation is expected to be on the Senate floor the week after next, said a spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who must combine the Finance version with a more liberal proposal from the health committee.

Much work would lie ahead before a bill could arrive on Obama's desk, but action by the Finance Committee would mark a significant advance, capping numerous delays as Baucus held marathon negotiating sessions -- ultimately unsuccessful -- aimed at producing a bipartisan bill.

The Finance Committee's top Republican, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, gave voice to the GOP's concerns about the bill, saying it was "moving on a slippery slope to more and more government control of health care."

"There's a lot in this bill that's just a consensus that needs to be done, but there are other provisions of this bill that raise a lot of questions," Grassley said, contending the legislation would mean higher costs for Americans.

One of the biggest unanswered questions is whether the legislation would slow punishing increases in the nation's health care costs, particularly for the majority who now have coverage through employers. The insurance industry insists it would shift new costs onto those who have coverage.

Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf, under questioning by Republican senators, acknowledged that the bill's total impact on the nation's health care costs is still unknown. The CBO has been able to establish that the legislation would reduce federal government deficits, but Elmendorf said his staff has not had time to evaluate its effects on privately insured people. Government programs pay about half the nation's annual $2.5 trillion health care tab.

Baucus' bill includes consumer protections such as limits on copays and deductibles and relies on federal subsidies to help lower-income families purchase coverage. Insurance companies would have to take all comers, and people could shop for insurance within new state marketplaces called exchanges.

Medicaid would be expanded, and though employers wouldn't be required to cover their workers, they'd have to pay a penalty for each employee who sought insurance with government subsidies. The bill is paid for by cuts to Medicare providers and new taxes on insurance companies and others.

Unlike the other health care bills in Congress, Baucus' would not allow the government to sell insurance in competition with private companies, a divisive element sought by liberals.

Last-minute changes made subsidies more generous and softened the penalties for those who don't comply with a proposed new mandate for everyone to buy insurance. The latter change drew the ire of the health insurance industry, which said that without a strong and enforceable requirement, not enough people would get insured and premiums would jump for everyone else.

A major question mark for Reid's negotiations is whether he will include some version of a so-called public plan in the merged bill. Across the Capitol, House Democratic leaders are working to finalize their bill, which does contain a public plan, and floor action is expected in both chambers in coming weeks. If passed, the legislation would then go to a conference committee to reconcile differences.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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