Health Care Reform Clears Baucus Committee

Today, the Senate Finance Committee passed a health care reform bill crafted by Montana Senator Max Baucus. The vote was almost along party line with Democratic Senators voting for the bill and all the Republicans except Maine's Olympia Snow voting against it.

According to the New York Times, the Baucus bill will now be reconciled with a more liberal bill passed by the Senate's Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Health care reform then must pass the Senate and then reconciled with any bills passed by the House of Representatives.

The battle for health care reform has been long and hard. The debate has at times been loud, angry and sometimes bizzarre. Still, health care reform moves forward. Once the reform bill is signed by the Senate, it can be modified and changed to meet the changing needs of the nation. I hope that the Health Care Reform bill will be like The Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act has been amended several times since it was first became law.

It is too early to predict the future of any health care reform bill passed by Congress in the forth coming year. There is still a lot of work to be done on the bill, and there is still a lot of work that we as citizens must do to make sure that when its passed, it will be the start of true health care reform. It is important to remember that health care is an important social problem, but there are other more difficult problems that must be dealt with as well, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an energy bill, entitlement reform and restoring the Republic to a sound financial footing by reduing the federal deficit.

If you are a supporter of health care reform, today can be a day of celebration, the Baucus Bill has made it out of the Senate Finance Committee. It is not yet law. More civic work must be done.

Capitano Tedeschi

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