President Barack Obama said moments ago in an address in the Rose Garden that the Senate Finance Committee’s 14-9 vote to pass a health care reform bill is “a critical milestone in our effort to reform our health care system.”
“We are now closer than ever before to passing health reform,” he said. “But we’re not there yet. Now’s not the time to pat ourselves on the back. Now’s not the time to offer ourselves congratulations. Now’s the time to dig in and work even harder to get this done.”
Obama said of the bill: “It includes ideas from both Democrats and Republicans, which is why it enjoys the support of people from both parties. And I want to particularly thank Sen. Olympia Snowe for both the political courage and the seriousness of purpose that she’s demonstrated throughout this process.”
Obama also said:
This bill is not perfect. We have a lot of difficult work ahead of us. There’s still significant details and disagreements to be worked over in the next several weeks as the five separate bills from the Senate and the House are merged into one proposal.
He praised the Senate Finance Committee bill as going “a long way toward offering security to those who have insurance and affordable options for those who don’t. It reins in some of the worst practices of the insurance industry.”
And, Obama said, “as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has certified, it will slow the growth of health care costs in the long term and it will not add a penny to our deficit.”
The President ended his remarks this way: “We are gonna get this done.”
