Obama asks House to vote on health care bill

By DAVID ESPO - AP Special Correspondent

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WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama summoned Democrats to "answer the call of history" Saturday as the House pushed toward a vote on a landmark health care bill holding out the promise of coverage for tens of millions who lack it.

After months of struggle capped by a final wrenching compromise over abortion, Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted, "we will pass health care reform," and likened the events to the creation of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare 30 years later.

Across hours of debate, minority Republicans cataloged their criticism of the 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion measure. "The American people need to understand this is about a government takeover of the whole health care system," said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga.

But with little or no doubt about the outcome, the rhetoric lacked the fire of last summer's town hall meetings, when some critics accused Democrats of plotting "death panels" to hasten the death of senior citizens.

The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide federal subsidies to those who otherwise could not afford it. Large companies would have to offer coverage to their employees. Both consumers and companies would be slapped with penalties if they defied the government's mandates.

Insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions would be banned, and insurers would no longer be able to charge higher premiums on the basis of gender or medical history. In a further slap, the industry would lose its exemption from federal antitrust restrictions on price gouging, bid rigging and market allocation.

At its core, the measure would create a federally regulated marketplace where consumers could shop for coverage. In the bill's most controversial provision, the government would sell insurance, although the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that premiums for it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private firms.

The bill is projected to expand coverage to 36 million uninsured, resulting in 96 percent of the nation's eligible population having insurance.

To pay for the expansion of coverage, the bill cuts Medicare's projected spending by more than $400 billion over a decade. It also imposes a tax surcharge of 5.4 percent on income over $500,000 in the case of individuals and $1 million for families.

The bill was estimated to reduce federal deficits by about $104 billion over a decade, although it lacked two of the key cost-cutting provisions under consideration in the Senate, and its longer-term impact on government red ink was far from clear.

Over all, the bill envisioned the most sweeping set of changes to the health care system in more than a generation, and Democrats said it marked the culmination of a campaign that Harry Truman began when he sat in the White House 60 years ago.

Passage would clear the way for a Senate debate expected to begin in several days. Democratic leaders have been working on a self-imposed deadline for passing a final compromise, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid signaled recently that may slip.

Debate on the House floor had already begun when Obama strode into a closed-door meeting of the Democratic rank and file across the street from the Capitol to make a final personal appeal to them to pass his top domestic priority. While the session was private, he later said he had told the rank and file "that opportunities like this come around maybe once in a generation.... This is their moment, this is our moment, to live up to the trust that the American people have placed in us..."