US President Barack Obama on Sunday urged Senate Democrats to work out their differences on healthcare reform and pass what will be the most significant social legislation in decades.
Obama met with party members during a Senate session as Democratic leaders push to pass major healthcare reform this month, a top domestic priority for Obama.
Senate Democratic leaders are struggling to resolve differences over a proposed new government-run public insurance plan and abortion language in an effort to gather the votes needed to overcome Republican opposition.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who played a major role in writing the healthcare overhaul, predicted the legislation would pass. Obama told senators the public would reward Democrats for decades to come if they pass what will be the most significant social legislation since Congress enacted Social Security in 1935, Baucus said.
Vice President Joe Biden joined the closed-door session.
“It’s very easy to get wrapped around the axle and forget what this is all about,” said Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, who played a significant role in developing the bill that aims to rein in soaring healthcare costs and expand coverage to more than 30 million people who now have no insurance.
Republicans uniformly oppose the bill, saying it would bring too much government intrusion into the US$2.5 trillion healthcare system. They are urging far more modest measures that aim to reduce premiums by limiting medical malpractice law suits and allowing insurance companies to sell policies across state lines. States now regulate health insurance markets.
Meanwhile, the Senate continued to work through the amendments to the legislation. It failed to pass an amendment by Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln that would have put new limits on tax deductions healthcare insurance companies could take for executive pay. The amendment would have put the limit at US$400,000. The legislation as it now stands limits the deduction at US$500,000.
A majority of senators, 56, voted for the amendment, but it needed 60 votes to pass.
The Senate may have tackled the controversial abortion issue yesterday. Some anti-abortion senators want to make sure that government subsidies are not used to purchase policies that provide abortion services.
Abortion rights supporters are worried that language being considered would bar all policies, even those purchased without subsidies, from covering legal abortion services.
The House of Representatives passed healthcare reform early last month and Senate Democrats are racing to finish their version of the bill before the end of this month. The two chambers would have to work out their differences before a final bill can be sent to Obama to be signed into law.
Democrats have little room for error. They control exactly 60 votes in the 100-member Senate, the number needed to overcome Republican opposition.
A group of moderate and liberal Democrats met on Sunday in hopes of reaching a compromise on the proposed public option. Some senators have said they will vote against the bill if it includes a public option.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS