United States: Green light for the Senate debate over a historic reform of health system

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The U.S. Senate voted Saturday in favor of launching a formal debate on the historic reform of the health system to extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who lack a major campaign promises of President Barack Obama.
 
As a procedural vote depended the fate of the bill of 2074 pages which is the subject of a fierce battle with the Republican minority determined to thwart them.


The Democrats would get 60 percent of the vote to begin debate scheduled from November 30 and then vote on an amended text which will probably be adopted by simple majority. These discussions are expected to last three weeks.


The 58 Democratic senators joined, as expected, two independent senators, including Joseph Lieberman, to reach the required number of 60. 39 Republicans voted against a Republican senator, George Voinovich of Ohio, did not vote.


After the vote, the spokesman for the White House Robert Gibbs said that "the historic vote last night brings us a little more than our desire to end the abuses of insurance companies, reduce costs medical care, to ensure stability and security of health coverage to those who have and provide quality coverage to those who do not. "


The two Democratic senators who were still uncertain finally had said Saturday that they would vote with their party. Mary Landrieu (Louisiana, south) and Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas, South) had indicated that they could still vote against the bill during its formal vote when the Democrats will only need a simple majority.


Thursday hesitant another Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson (Nebraska, center) had announced that he would vote with his party.


The seats of the three Democrats elected in conservative states are threatened in the upcoming elections in November 2010 and voted in favor of the proposed reform of their health could be electorally fatal.


The text includes the establishment of a public option for health coverage to compete with private insurance groups.


This medical coverage whose cost is estimated at 848 billion dollars by 2019 is expected to make savings and reduce the U.S. budget deficit of 130 billion dollars over the same period.


The adoption of the bill by the Senate would force him and the House of Representatives, which adopted its own text Reform November 7, to negotiate a compromise.


The Senate and House will then vote on the compromise text before submitting the law to the signature of President Obama to its enactment.


The Republicans are trying to prolong the battle for reform of the health system until next year, hoping that the forthcoming parliamentary elections in mid-term in November 2010 will take the Democrats elected in conservative states to vote against the reform.


The Minority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell has warned Saturday in the opening debate in the Senate against the adoption "of this program extremely expensive at a time when (...) our international creditors, the Chinese, we make the lesson on our debt. "


The Majority Leader Democrat Harry Reid retorted that Republicans had decided to spend billions of dollars to fund a "non-necessary war" in Iraq under former president George W. Bush.


The White House on Friday launched a fresh appeal to undecided senators, saying the vote on reform of the health system was "essential".


The United States is the only major industrialized democratic country not having universal health insurance, leaving 36 million Americans without coverage.