(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) says passing a final health care bill ranks up there with passage of civil rights legislation and the creation of Social Security and Medicare.
The liberal Democrat says he will be among those who vote to end a Senate filibuster on Saturday – “so the Senate can begin this important and historic debate.”
Leahy said “months of arduous drafting and redrafting and honing” (by Democrats, working without Republicans behind closed doors) has produced a bill worthy of debate.
"This is a defining moment for the Senate and for the country, ranking alongside other major decisions such as the creation of Social Security and Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act. The Senate should not hide behind the fig leaf of a procedural filibuster,” Leahy said in a statement.
"We cannot afford to let the health industry's sentries of the status quo kick the can down the road as they have done so often before. The country suffers when there is a failure to act on serious challenges that ordinary Americans face in their daily lives.”
Republicans say the country will suffer when Americans discover what’s in the bill – higher insurance premiums, tax increases and Medicare cuts to pay for more government, Sen. Mitch McConnell said.
McConnell says the true cost of the Senate bill -- over 10 years, when it is fully implemented -- is about $2.5 trillion. Most of the bill’s provisions won’t take effect until 2014.
Even Leahy says there’s room for “improvement” in the Senate bill – but what he sees as an improvement the insurance industry views as a cost-booster:
“I intend to offer an amendment to end the antitrust exemption now enjoyed by health insurance companies,” Leahy said in his statement, adding that “momentum continues to build for including this repeal in the final plan."
The antitrust exemption – established by the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act --gives the states precedence in regulating insurance companies, but insurance companies are exempt from federal antitrust laws only in cases where state laws exist.
The idea was to allow insurance companies to share information about risk.
It will require 60 votes in the Senate -- from all 58 Democrats and two independents -- to bring the health care bill to the floor for a vote. The vote to stop the Republican filibuster is expected to happen on Saturday night.