Senate Democrats on Thursday approved the best health care reform bill they could manage: a sweeping $871 billion proposal designed to extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and slow the growth of runaway costs. It was at once a monumental achievement, which if signed into law would represent the most expansive overhaul of the nation’s dysfunctional health care system in generations, and a disappointment to many liberals who’d hoped the reforms would go further to rein in the same medical-services industries most responsible for the skyrocketing expenses.
The tally was 60 to 39, with every member of the Democratic caucus (including two Independents) voting in favor of the measure and every Republican present voting against it.
“This is for my friend Ted Kennedy,” 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) said just before his vote, a reference to the late Massachusetts Democrat and health reform champion who passed away over the summer.
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