NEJM: Week 1 of the Senate Debate — Amending the Reform Bill (John K. Iglehart)

I'm a little bit confused as to all the different health bills being considered in Congress and their current statuses. From my understanding there is now one health bill in the House and one health bill in the Senate. This article is about the Senate health bill, which has yet to be passed.

Apparently Senate wide debates are occurring regarding the amendments that will be included in this bill. Two Republican proposed amendments have been voted down. Republicans had proposed amendments that would 1) eliminate cuts to medicare 2) eliminate a long-term care program championed by the late Senator Ted Kennedy. It's a bit strange now that Republicans are now against cutting medicare spending, when in the past they've always been keen on reducing Medicare and other government programs. But now Republicans argue that cuts to Medicare would result in unacceptable decreased benefits to Medicare patients.

There was bipartisan agreement that mammograms for women of age 40 and above should be covered despite the recommendations by the government task force stating that women should only start getting mammograms at the age of 50.

The two issues that will prompt the most vigorous debates, and pose the greatest threat to the passing of the Senate bill are the coverage of abortions and the public option. Like I mentioned in a previous blog entry, I don't think that health reform should cover abortions (not from a personal perspective but for the sake of passing the bill through). I need to do more research to determine my stance on the public option. My initial impression is that it's a good idea to give private insurance companies more competition. Based on how the government runs most of its programs, the competition won't be particularly stiff. But like I said, I need to do more research on it. How much will it save? What are the benefits of having a public option? What are the downfalls? Questions that need to be answered...

Week 1 of the Senate Debate — Amending the Reform Bill