Posted on 10/13/2009 11:26:45 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine said Tuesday that she'd support a sweeping Senate Finance Committee bill overhauling the U.S. health-care industry, giving Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., a sought-after Republican vote on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.
In highly anticipated comments on the $829 billion, 10-year bill, Snowe said the bill wasn't all she wanted.
"Far from it," she told fellow senators during what is likely to be the committee's last work session on Baucus's bill. "But when history calls, history calls, and I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress to demonstrate its capacity to solve the monumental issues of our time."
Baucus kicked off the committee meeting Tuesday morning, saying "now is the time to get this done," after the committee's longest bill-writing session in more than 22 years. The panel is expected to vote its final approval or rejection of the bill before the day's end.
The legislation needs 12 votes to clear the 23-member committee. If it passes, it would mark a major milestone on the road to overhauling the $2.4 trillion U.S. health-care industry. The Finance Committee's is the last of five congressional bills to be voted on. Both the Senate and House would need to pass bills for Obama to sign.
The committee's early debate reflected deep partisan divisions.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the bill grows government, puts in place the biggest expansion of Medicaid since the federal program's creation, and saddles individuals with mandates to buy insurance.
"I wish I felt better about the substance of the bill," said Grassley, the panel's top Republican.
Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., was blunter. He said the measure "adds insult to injury" by hitting people with penalties if they don't buy health insurance.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
She’s not a key Republican.
“Could we just go right to 2012!!!”
I am soooooooo ready.
Call her Maine offices instead....often works. Plus, you can tell them you are one of her constituents, “but your on a worksite in another state”, if you don’t happen to live in Maine....
Thank God you aren’t wearing that pointy hat.
Now leave my dog alone!
dictate the urgency of Congress to demonstrate its capacity to solve the monumental issues of our time
Gibberish dosed with hubris - Snowe is expert at this sort of nonsense.
Nearly everything that Congress meddles in, it ruins.
WTF is wrong with her? The demise of our great country is near! I feel like I’m getting an industrial broomstick shoved right up my ass. It’s painful and there seems no hope of extraction! Damn our Congress! A plague on them all!
Snowe sells us out again.
Just remember to return it to Senator Snowe so she can get to her townhall meetings.
Sickening, but not surprising.
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