Source:
ASSOCIATED PRESSSenators to Start Work on Revised Health Care Bill
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 22, 2009
Filed at 6:19 a.m. ET
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senators challenging the latest proposed health care overhaul already have won concessions that include reducing a penalty for Americans who don't buy insurance, and hundreds of other changes are up for debate as a powerful committee takes up President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.
The Senate Finance Committee -- the last of five panels to have a say before the full Senate debates legislation -- will consider a 10-year, nearly $900 billion plan Tuesday by Chairman Max Baucus. The Montana Democrat has spent months striving for bipartisan common ground. Senators have filed 564 amendments, some of which would make major changes to his carefully crafted framework.
Ahead of the vote, Baucus labored to address serious concerns from fellow Democrats and a key Republican about insurance costs.
''We've come a long, long way to satisfying the affordability concerns,'' Baucus said after an evening meeting Monday with committee Democrats. He wants to finish committee work on his bill by the end of the week.
But Baucus faces the difficult task of keeping the 13 Democrats on board without moving so far to the left that he alienates Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, the only one of the panel's 10 Republicans considered a possible vote for the bill.
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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/09/22/us/politics/AP-US-Health-Care-Overhaul.html