Lost amid yesterday's media shuffle about Sonia Sotomayor's wisdom and the House's health care reform bill, the Senate health committee passed its own version of reform.
The strict party line vote drew no Republican support, highlighting again how divided lawmakers stand over the various proposals floating around Capitol Hill.
So what does the Senate bill propose? Well, while the Senators want to expand coverage further than their counterparts in House, they have even less of an idea of how to pay for it, offering no funding proposals whatsoever. For now.
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Both bills also enforce mandates for both employers and individuals, with the House taking a somewhat harsher stand on employers than the Senate version. The House bill imposes a flat 8 percent payroll tax, while the Senate bill impose a $750 per worker penalty. The House clause for smaller business is also much more strict, exempting only payrolls of $250,000 or less, while the Senate proposal exempts businesses with fewer than 25 workers.
Despite what the Obama administration and most of Capitol Hill believe, Americans remain divided over whether they want all this reform, anyway. In fact, a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll reveals that 40 percent of Americans believe a public-plan option would lower quality of care, while 21 percent said it would improve it.
As far as what Congress should do, Americans stand even more divided than Congress itself, with 46 percent saying the feds should expand coverage, while 44 percent are more concerned with controlling costs.
Typical, we want to have our cake, eat it and have somebody else pay for the high-blood pressure meds we're gonna need to help treat our obesity after several years of shoveling all that frosting.
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