Reid unveils broad US Senate healthcare plan

RELATED NEWS Health insurance industry on healing ground

US Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid released a long-awaited healthcare reform plan on Wednesday that budget analysts said would extend coverage to tens of millions of the uninsured and reduce the deficit over 10 years.

After weeks of closed-door talks to combine two Senate measures, the publication of Reid's 2,074-page bill quickly set off what promises to be a lengthy and bitter debate over President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.

"Tonight begins the last leg of this journey," Reid told reporters after meeting privately with Senate Democrats.

Obama applauded the Senate legislation, calling it "another critical milestone" in the push for healthcare reform, but Republicans condemned it as a costly government intrusion in the private healthcare sector.

The bill's publication clears the way for a Senate vote as soon as this weekend on whether to begin debate - the first key procedural hurdle for the Senate plan.

Democrats said the Congressional Budget Office pegged the plan's 10-year cost at USD 849 billion - below Obama's USD 900 billion goal.

The CBO analysis said the plan would reduce the deficit by USD 127 billion over 10 years and USD 650 billion in the second decade and extend coverage to 31 million more Americans, Democrats said, a rosy report card that could boost the bill's prospects in a sharply divided Senate.

The actual analysis from the Congressional Budget Office had not been released by mid-evening on Wednesday.

The Senate bill is less expensive than a more than USD 1 trillion healthcare measure passed on November 7 in the House of Representatives. That bill would have covered at least 5 million more uninsured.

Republicans criticized tax increases included in the bill to help pay for the expanded insurance coverage, including a new tax on elective cosmetic surgery they dubbed a "botox tax."

The bill would also raise the Medicare payroll tax on high-income workers, which is used to finance the government health program for the elderly, and impose a tax on high-cost "Cadillac" insurance plans.

Reid's version of the Cadillac tax is scaled back from the version in the Senate Finance Committee, which drew the ire of labor unions, a key Democratic constituency, which said it would affect middle-income workers.

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