Health Care Reform, Senate Finance Committee | featured news

The Senate Finance Committee passed a long-awaited $829 billion health care bill Tuesday by a 14-9 vote. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, was the lone committee member to cross party lines, breaking with other Republicans to vote for the measure. All the committee's Democrats supported the bill.

The Senate Finance Committee will vote on its long-awaited health care bill next Tuesday, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on the Senate floor Thursday.

The Senate Finance Committee's healthcare reform bill would cost an estimated $829 billion over 10 years and reduce the budget deficit by $81 billion, congressional budget analysts said on Wednesday.

Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee are at odds over how far to go in preventing insurance companies from covering the procedure for woman who would get subsidies.

As the Senate Finance Committee continued to debate its version of a healthcare overhaul bill Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans clashed over abortion -- potentially complicating President Obama's drive for action this fall.

Two members of the Senate Finance Committee plan to put their Democratic colleagues on the spot on Tuesday by offering amendments on whether to give uninsured Americans the opportunity to join a government insurance program.

Reacting to an amendment proposed by Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-Texas) during the Senate Finance Committee's markup of health care reform legislation on Thursday, committee member Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called his colleague a pawn of the health insurance industry.

"This is a very, very important amendment and it's a very, very bad amendment," said Rockefeller. "If there's anything which is clear, it's that the insurance industry is not running this markup, but is running certain people in this markup."

After huddling Wednesday with Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Max Baucus told reporters that lawmakers still need to come up with $320 billion over the coming decade in taxes to pay for the health care plan.