The House narrowly passed the Democratic health care plan late Saturday with a vote of 220-215. The legislation will be reconciled with Senate Democratic health care bills and then face a vote in the Senate.

The plan passed without any help from Kansas Republicans, and only gained the support of one House Republican.

Rep. Jerry Moran, R-First District; Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Second District; and Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Fourth District each voted against the bill. Kansas’ lone Democrat Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Third District, voted in favor of the bill.

Kanasas’ two Republican Senators, Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, have both voiced their opposition to Democratic health care bills. Roberts had voted against a Senate health care bill while it was in the Senate Finance Committee.

A spokesperson from Roberts office said it was too soon to speculate whether or not a bill would have the votes to pass the Senate.

“We are waiting on the merged Senate HELP and Finance bill to be made public,” Roberts' press secretary, Molly Haase, told Kansas Liberty. “ We have yet to see this merged bill that will be considered on the Senate floor.”

The Democratic plan — HR 3962 — requires mandatory insurance coverage. It also requires certain small businesses to provide their employees with health insurance benefits, and creates billions of dollars worth of new taxes.

Individuals and businesses which fail to comply with the requirements would be fined or taxed and could even face prison for noncompliance.

In a statement released after Saturday’s vote Tiahrt commented on the additional burden the reform would place on residents if it does become law.

“This is a historic moment — a moment where those who hold power in Washington showed just how callous they are to the pain and suffering of the American people,” Tiahrt said in the statement. “But Speaker Pelosi’s healthcare proposals have never been about lowering the cost of health care or providing more access — they have always been about swelling the size of the federal government and controlling more of our decisions through a centralized health care system.”

Tiahrt said that if the plan becomes law he would work to defund it or to have it repealed.

Besides raising funds to pay for the plan through increased and new taxes, the government will be making hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare, the health insurance program which covers senior citizens. 

Opponents of the passed health care bill argue this measure will result in a rationing of care and decreased benefits for the nation’s older citizens.

The Democratic plan was endorsed by AARP, a longtime ally of Congressional Democrats. The organization claimed the plan would increase coverage, but there was no mention of the the massive cuts and rationing the plan apparently requires.

Moran also issued a statement after voting against Pelosi’s plan in which he points out how the reform bill would fail to meet the needs of Kansas’ aging population.

“Our state has unique health care needs, different from much of the country, and we have an aging population that is spread widely across a large area,” Moran said. “I am especially troubled by how $500 billion in Medicare cuts and proposed reimbursement rates contained in the bill will affect Kansas with our high per-capita population of seniors. Only in Washington does cutting billions from a near-bankrupt Medicare program seem like a good idea.”

Barb Conant, spokesperson with the Kansas Department on Aging, said the agency has remained neutral on health care plans so far and that she was unsure whether or not the department would take a definitive stance once a final Senate version emerges.

“It still has a few more hoops to jump through,” Conant told Kansas Liberty.

The department has posted a “myths and facts” report on its web site. The report was created by the Department of Health and Human Services under the guidance of Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The report challenges the beliefs of many Republicans and conservatives that the plan will cause rationing of care for the elderly as well as mandate physicians to conduct end-of-life counseling that will promote seniors to sign off on documents that would keep them from receiving life sustaining treatment if they are ever in an unconscious state.

“We are not taking a position but at the same time we don’t want that misinformation to scare our seniors,” Conant said.

While the passage of the bill was a massive defeat for House Republicans, they did manage to tack on an amendment that will keep the government from using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions.

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, successfully promoted the amendment which deleted two abortion-promoting provisions from the legislation.

The amendment first works to permanently prohibit the public insurance program from paying for an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. The second part of the amendment ensures that federal subsidies that can be used to buy insurance plans could not be used in cases where the insurance plan covers abortions, unless the insurance only covers abortions which will save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest.

Individuals would still be able to gain access to insurance plans which cover abortion services, but they would have to pay for these plans entirely with their own funds.

Moran, Jenkins, and Tiahrt each voted in favor of the Stupak amendment, while Moore voted against it. All voting House Republicans were in favor of the amendment along with 64 Democrats. The National Right to Life Committee’s legislative director Douglas Johnson referred to the vote as “a sharp blow to the White House’s pro-abortion smuggling operation.”

Kansans for Life executive director Mary Kay Culp questioned whether or not the Democrats would continue to be interested in promoting the plan if the abortion-provisions remain stripped off.

“They don’t want reform without it,” Culp told Kansas Liberty. “Who knows, they may kill the bill if that is not in there.”

Culp said there was “no question” that the abortion rates in the state as well as the nation would increase if the Stupak amendment fails to make it on any final bill.

Allowing taxpayer funding of abortions "would expand the access to and expand the payment for abortions,” she said. “And we don’t need to expand the heartbreak of abortion to more babies and more mothers.”

Resources:

Vote breakdown for Pelosi’s health care reform

Vote record for Stupak amendment

Kansas Department on Aging

Kansans for Life

The Week in Review