On Wednesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved a bill to revamp the nation’s health care system. The vote, however, 13 - 10, was strictly along party lines.
The GOP continues to rail against the expense of the health plan, adding that the plan will restrict consumer choices. What they fail to note is that the system as is restricts choices, not based on the government running the plan, but based on insurance companies either saying a treatment is "experimental" or trying to get out of covering an individual by hook or by crook.
The GOP also fails to note that statistically countries with public plans have a lower incidence of infant mortality than the US, and a longer lifespan. One need only go to Unicef's site to gather such statistics. As of 2007, for example, Canadian's live 81 years while we live 79. Their infant mortality rate is lower than ours as well. So is the U.K.'s, and so is Cuba's. Yet Cuba would be classified a third-world country by many.
Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, thanked Mr. Dodd and other committee members in a statement issued from Hyannis Port, Mass., where he is battling brain cancer.
“It is a cause that can and should unite us all as Americans. As we move from our committee room to the Senate floor, we must continue the search for solutions that unite us, so that the great promise of quality affordable health care for all can be fulfilled.”
The bill now moves to the full Senate where it can expect a huge amount of contentious, and partisan, discussion.
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