Conservative Democrats promote Health care reform

Senate Democrats voted to move into a representative debate on overhauling the nation’s health care system on Saturday. Key centrists made it clear Sunday that the party is still a long way from convey its promise to provide near-universal health insurance coverage and contain medical costs.

In the face of the prospect of Republican filibusters at every aspect, Democratic leaders can only keep on moving the process if they could deliver the same kind of total unity they obtained in Saturday’s vote to begin debate: Every Democratic senator, plus two independents who caucus with them, supported the key procedural motion.

But several of those senators said they if no major changes are made ,they will not be prepared to support the bill on Sunday.

Sen.Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska, said on ABC’s “This Week” that the reason why he voted to cut off a GOP filibuster and move into debate after the Thanksgiving holiday is that he wanted to open the way to changing the bill put forward by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,.

Nelson said:”if I Thought the bill couldn’t be amended and couldn’t be improved, I wouldn’t vote to move it forward and move the debate ” And he added he would have voted to block the Reid bill if it had been before Senate on Saturday.
Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the former Democrat who is now an independent, said he also voted to allow debate because he wants a chance to amend the bill, specifically to remove the so-called public option provision, under which some consumers would be offered an optional government insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.

“I don’t think anyone thinks this bill will pass as it is,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “the wind is at our back.”

Schumer said the public option would have to meet the same requirements as private insurance and would not undermine those entities.

But Republicans said the legislation was fatally flawed and said Congress needed to start over with more GOP input.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas said the bill would be “a disaster” which is expensive and make a burden on the finance and force some people to lose their health care.