Today, The New York Times' Bob Herbert has an excellent column giving the lie to those tactics from the President's most loyal supporters.  Herbert explains why the health care bill -- with its reliance on taxes on so-called "Cadillac" plans -- is far more likely to end up burdening the middle class and reducing health insurance coverage for tens of millions of people:

In fact, it’s a tax that in a few years will hammer millions of middle-class policyholders, forcing them to scale back their access to medical care. Which is exactly what the tax is designed to do. . . .

Within three years of its implementation, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax would apply to nearly 20 percent of all workers with employer-provided health coverage in the country, affecting some 31 million people. Within six years, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax would reach a fifth of all households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually. Those families can hardly be considered very wealthy. . . .

The idea is that rather than fork over 40 percent in taxes on the amount by which policies exceed the threshold, employers (and individuals who purchase health insurance on their own) will have little choice but to ratchet down the quality of their health plans. . . . These lower-value plans would have higher out-of-pocket costs, thus increasing the very things that are so maddening to so many policyholders right now: higher and higher co-payments, soaring deductibles and so forth. . . .

Proponents say this is a terrific way to hold down health care costs. If policyholders have to pay more out of their own pockets, they will be more careful -- that is to say, more reluctant -- to access health services. On the other hand, people with very serious illnesses will be saddled with much higher out-of-pocket costs. And a reluctance to seek treatment for something that might seem relatively minor at first could well have terrible (and terribly expensive) consequences in the long run.

Herbert also explains why the central assumptions of the plan are patently unrealistic.  There are substantive replies one can make to these claims, but Herbert's column demonstrates a truth that has been deliberately distorted by the President's defenders:  the progressive case against the health care bill is not grounded in "ideological purity" or childish anger or any of the other deceitful strawmen that have been created.  It is based on these substantive policy objections.  Along with the extreme burden that will be imposed on those forced by penalty of law to purchase private insurance policies they cannot afford and do not want, the argument has always been that the Senate bill will cause massive amounts of harm both from the perspective of health care policy and generally by filling the coffers of large insurance and pharmaceutical industry interests at the expense of the middle class.

The title of Herbert's column is "A Less Than Honest Policy."  The same can be said of the principal tactics used by the bill's proponents, who have relied far more on the old reliable, trite derision and demonization of The Angry, Purist Left than they have on honest discussions.

And then there is the most painful memory of all: the killer rabbit. On April 20, 1979, a White House photographer captured an image of the beleaguered President Carter using his paddle to fend off a rabbit as it swam toward his fishing boat in Georgia. The photo was suppressed until the Reagan years, and Carter's press secretary explained that the creature was a ferocious "swamp rabbit." But headlines like "President Attacked by Rabbit" gave a comic spin to the widely shared feeling that the U.S. government had become feeble and ridiculous.

I've got those killer-rabbit blues again. And I'm not the only one.

Some Democratic partisans have claimed that the pathetic, lobby-written healthcare bill is the greatest expansion of social insurance in the U.S. since Medicare. Possibly true, but so what? Passing the greatest social reform since the days of LBJ is easy, like being the greatest novelist in Lichtenstein or the greatest tap dancer in Mongolia. There isn't much competition. Since the 1960s our increasingly paralyzed Congress seems to have become incapable of enacting any reform that isn't trivial, or botched, like the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, or corrupted beyond recognition, like the healthcare bill.

Nor is the pathology limited to the legislative branch. Whether under Republicans or Democrats, whether the threat is Hurricane Katrina or Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, America seems to be facing a general crisis of state incapacity. Money can be found by Democratic and Republican administrations alike to bail out campaign contributors on Wall Street, but not to repair our crumbling infrastructure.

The U.S. fought and won World War II in less time than it took to adequately protect U.S. soldiers against primitive weapons in Iraq. We are told that we have to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan indefinitely, because withdrawing would be admitting failure. Translation: We haven't won and are unlikely to win in the foreseeable future, if ever.

And now the narrowly averted Christmas massacre in the skies above Detroit. I don't think I'm overreacting when I say that if ever overreaction on the part of a citizenry has been justified, it is now. We the people deserve to be angry. It's not as though Abdulmutallab came up with a clever new tactic while our national security agencies were focused on the last tactic. He used more or less the same tactic as the "shoe bomber," Richard Reid, and nevertheless got through every layer of international and national security.

It's almost as though Osama bin Laden had been allowed through screening at Boston Logan, used a box cutter to hijack a jet, and would have crashed it but for the heroic intervention of other passengers defending themselves after their government failed to defend them.

Forget Democrats and Republicans for a minute. Every American should be asking the same questions: Why are we paying these people?

Our elected leaders and public servants can't do the hard stuff, and they can't do the easy stuff either. They can't provide universal, affordable healthcare, of the kind that all other advanced industrial societies have. They can't give us a system of banking that channels money from depositors to productive enterprises in our country, without being channeled into gambling with obscene profits skimmed off for the gambler-bankers. They can't win wars or avoid unwinnable ones. They can't even repair bridges and keep levees in operating condition, tasks mastered by the relatively primitive ancient Romans and ancient Chinese.

And now, after two invasions justified in the name of the "war on terror," the creation of a cumbersome Homeland Security bureaucracy and a Patriot Act, and countless studies, reports and hearings, it turns out that we Americans may have to defend ourselves against jihadists. First we were told ad nauseam that it was our job to identify possible terrorists in airports and bus terminals and train stations. What next? "Passengers are advised to be prepared to throw themselves if necessary on the flaming traveler next to them in the aircraft, in order to prevent a bomb from detonating. Please watch the demonstration by the flight attendants."

The reality as well as the perception of government incapacity threatens liberalism more than conservatism. After all, if public safety deteriorates, antisocial plutocrats can retreat into doormanned buildings and gated communities and hire their own private security forces, and rural conservatives can amass home arsenals. And if the costs of personal security reduce the room for taxes for public goods, well, then, so much the better, from the perspective of certain strains of anti-government conservatism.

In contrast, America's modest and inadequate system of social democracy rests on economic growth made possible by effective government provision of basic public goods. Economic growth in turn rests on physical security — the protection of citizens against criminals in their midst and hostile or law-breaking foreigners. Libertarians to the contrary, the indispensable preconditions for the free society are effective armed forces and police forces, be they citizen militias or professionals.

Social democracy, in the form both of middle-class social insurance like Social Security and Medicare and means-tested programs for the poor, is a luxury of countries with secure borders and advanced, functioning mixed economies. You can have a generous welfare state only after you have effective soldiers, police forces and intelligence agencies and well-run industries, infrastructure and utilities.

If global war or a civilization-threatening natural catastrophe forced us to choose to save some functions of government at the expense of others, we would put security over wealth and redistribution. We would sacrifice the Social Security Administration and the Commerce Department in order to keep the Pentagon, in the hope of regenerating the fleshy tissue of the economy and the social insurance system in the future around the hard skeleton of the state.

Twentieth-century progressives and liberals took this order of priorities for granted. Theodore Roosevelt the environmentalist and reformer was also police commissioner of New York as well as assistant secretary of the Navy and commander of the Rough Riders. Franklin Roosevelt had a major in navalism and power politics, as it were, and a minor in electrical utilities. FDR came relatively late to the idea of social insurance. Any list of Americans who symbolized New Deal liberalism in the public mind would include Adm. Hyman Rickover of the Navy and the Atomic Energy Commission and David Lilienthal of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Following the Vietnam War, however, the two parties specialized, with the Republicans specializing in national security and "law and order" and the Democrats specializing in defending existing social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare and proposing new ones like universal healthcare. Because security against foreign attack and domestic crime comes first, even in the left-liberal tradition, properly understood, it is hardly surprising that Republicans have dominated the presidency except in the 1990s, when the Cold War had ended, and beginning in 2008, when the fear of al-Qaida-inspired jihadism had gone down (perhaps temporarily).

This doesn't mean that progressives should try to prove they are as tough as conservatives by invading countries unnecessarily, or keeping Guantánamo open, or torturing terrorists, or supporting the barbaric death penalty. Nor do they need to adopt neoconservative rhetoric or strategy. But it does mean that the party of activist government is doomed unless it is first and foremost the party of functioning, competent, basic government — national defense, law enforcement and functioning public utilities, including utility banking.

Not all Democrats are progressive, but in our two-party system, the Democrats are the more progressive party. At the moment the relatively progressive party owns the national government, and the national government's first job is to control its own borders, keeping out enemies like Abdulmutallab. National defense requires striving to eliminate illegal immigration and punishing those who break our immigration laws because the same lax law enforcement that permits the "good" illegal immigrant nanny to cross the border and the "good" foreign student to overstay her visa inevitably empowers terrorists and criminals.

Democrats shouldn't see this as an irksome task that is necessary to win the credibility they need for their social insurance reforms. Like the progressives and New Dealers, they should take it for granted. Physical security comes before economic security.

It wasn't my personal duty back in the '70s when I was a high school student to "whip inflation," and it is not my personal duty now to be vigilant in the airport or to be prepared on airplane flights to overpower a would-be mass murderer on a terrorist watch list who has brought easily detected explosives onto the plane. We hire politicians and pay public servants to do these tasks — not to try their best to do them, not to come up with procedures to make it likely they will be done, but to actually do them.

If our officials can't provide the basic goods of an advanced society — secure borders, safe streets, a functioning economic infrastructure — then we need to keep firing them until we find somebody who can do the job.

What the ping-pong plan means for the final product is hard to predict. The House bill is, in many ways, far more progressive than the Senate version — there's a public insurance option as part of the exchanges the bill would set up, a tax on the wealthy to pay for the new insurance subsidies, and a requirement that all employers provide insurance to their workers. The Senate, in contrast, has no public option or anything like it (thanks to Joe Lieberman), pays for the subsidies by taxing expensive health benefit plans and requires only individuals — not employers — to purchase insurance. The House bill also takes effect sooner, in 2013 rather than 2014, though some of the Senate provisions — like a ban on insurers refusing coverage to children with pre-existing medical conditions — would take effect immediately. The House has a national insurance exchange; the Senate would set up 50 state exchanges. On the other hand, the House's abortion provisions are more restrictive than the Senate's. And the Senate bill has a provision for an independent commission on Medicare reimbursement rates that the House bill lacks; that could help cut medical costs, one of the ostensible purposes of the legislation.

House Democrats have come pretty close to drawing a line in the sand over the public option, as well as supporting the employer mandate and opposing the tax on benefits. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., the co-chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, calls those provisions items that "cannot be dismissed." But key conservatives in the Senate, like Lieberman and Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, say they won't vote for a final bill that strays too much from the version the Senate passed Thursday. And since the legislation will, once again, need 60 votes to get past procedural obstacles in the Senate, that's a serious threat.

So the negotiations may focus on making insurance more affordable for the millions of people who will still need help buying the coverage they're required to get. The Congressional Budget Office says the Senate bill would save $132 billion over the next 10 years, and some of that money could be used to expand access to community health clinics and beef up subsidies and other affordability improvements. "You have some money to spare, because you're so deep in the black," one senior Senate Democratic aide says. "You figure out where you can spend some money to help" — both help people get insurance and help keep progressives on board with the bill.

Also, look for the final bill to include as many provisions that take effect sooner, rather than later, as possible. Democrats worry about polls showing the legislation isn't popular with voters, and there is, after all, another election only 11 months away. Being able to point to some concrete examples of how the bill helped people now would ease those worries dramatically. (The Senate Finance Committee has already posted a list of immediate changes the bill would provide, including a ban on dropping coverage for patients who get sick.)

Very tentative informal talks will take place next week, aides say, and staffers from the House and Senate will begin meeting the first week in January. Once the House returns from its winter break, lawmakers will start meeting. Chances are the bill could be ready for passage by late January or early February.

Finally, in a nod to the fact that a final bill -- which still has to be worked out by the House and Senate, and then passed again -- will not, as he and his fellow Democrats had hoped, be hitting his desk before the end of this year, Obama said, "For the sake of our citizens, our economy, and our future, let's make 2010 the year we finally reform health care in the United States of America."

Obama's full statement:

In a historic vote that took place this morning, members of the Senate joined their colleagues in the House of Representatives to pass a landmark health-insurance reform package; legislation that brings us toward the end of a nearly century-long struggle to reform America's health-care system.

Every since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform in 1912, seven presidents -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- have taken up the cause of reform. Time and time again, such efforts have been blocked by special-interest lobbyists who perpetuated a status quo that works better for the insurance industry than it does for the American people.

But with passage of reform bills in both the House and the Senate, we are now finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health-insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people.

The reform bill that passed the Senate this morning, like the House bill, includes the toughest measures ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable. Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny you coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition. They will no long be able to drop your coverage when you get sick.

No longer will you have to pay unlimited amounts out of your own pocket for the treatments you need. And you'll be able to appeal unfair decisions by insurance companies to an independent party.

If this legislation becomes law, workers won't have to worry about losing coverage if they lose or change jobs. Families will save on their premiums. Businesses that would see their costs rise if we do not act will save money now and they will save money in the future.

This bill will strengthen Medicare and extend the life of the program. It will make coverage affordable for over 30 million Americans who do not have it -- 30 million Americans.

And because it is paid for and curbs the waste and inefficiency in our health care system, this bill will help reduce our deficit by as much as $1.3 trillion in the coming decades, making it the largest deficit-reduction plan in over a decade.

As I've said before, these are not small reforms; these are big reforms. If passed, this will be the most important piece of social legislation since the Social Security Act passed in the 1930s and the most important reform of our health care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s.

What makes it so important is not just its cost savings or its deficit reductions. It's the impact reform will have on Americans who no longer have to go without a checkup or prescriptions that they need because they can't afford them, on families who no longer have to worry that a single illness will send them into financial ruin, and on businesses that will no longer face exorbitant insurance rates that hamper their competitiveness. It's the difference reform will make in the lives of the American people.

I want to commend Senator Harry Reid, extraordinary work that he did, Speaker Pelosi, for her extraordinary leadership and dedication. Having passed reform bills in both the House and the Senate, we now have to take up the last and most important step and reach an agreement on a final reform bill that I can sign into law.

And I look forward to working with members of Congress in both chambers over the coming weeks to do exactly that. With today's vote, we are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country. Our challenge then is to finish the job.

We can't doom another generation of Americans to soaring costs and eroding coverage and exploding deficits. Instead, we need to do what we were sent here to do and improve the lives of the people we serve.

For the sake of our citizens, our economy, and our future, let's make 2010 the year we finally reform health care in the United States of America.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: Never before has the Senate found the resolve to make health insurance more affordable and health insurance companies more accountable until today. This is a victory for the American people. Those fortunate enough to have health insurance will be able to keep theirs, and those who do not will be able to have health insurance.

This is a victory because we've affirmed that the ability to live a healthy life in our great country is a right and not merely a privilege for the select few. This morning's vote brings us one step closer to making Ted Kennedy's dream a reality; the dream of Americans also are part of that dream of Ted Kennedy's, and that's also become a reality.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Today’s vote in the United States Senate brings us closer to providing quality, affordable health insurance to every American. I commend Senator Reid for his strong leadership in passing this bill, which takes a critical step on behalf of the health and security of all Americans.

We are proud of the House bill, which provides more affordable coverage for the middle class, covers 36 million currently uninsured Americans, begins health insurance reform in 2013, fully closes the prescription drug donut hole for seniors, mandates strong reforms of the insurance industry, and is fiscally responsible, cutting the deficit by $138 billion over 10 years.

As we move forward through the legislative process, we will soon produce a final bill that is founded on the core principles of health insurance reform: affordability for the middle class, security for our seniors, responsibility to our children by reducing the deficit, and accountability for the insurance industry.

I look forward to working with Members of the House, the Senate, and President Obama to reconcile our bills and send the final legislation to the President’s desk as soon as possible.

House Minority Leader John Boehner: Not even Ebenezer Scrooge himself could devise a scheme as cruel and greedy as Democrats’ government takeover of health care.

Senator Reid’s health care bill increases premiums for families and small businesses, raises taxes during a recession, cuts seniors’ Medicare benefits, adds to our skyrocketing debt, and puts bureaucrats in charge of decisions that should be made by patients and doctors. The bill also authorizes taxpayer-funded abortions, violating long-standing federal policy. It’s no coincidence that the more the American people learn about this monstrosity, the more they oppose it.

This legislation is so toxic that Senator Reid needed to pull off a series of outrageous payoffs, kickbacks and sweetheart deals just to get the votes of members of his own party. The way in which Senate Democrats turned their backs on American families and put their votes on the auction block is a disgrace to our country.

President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Reid will now hammer out a final bill in secret, despite campaign promises and pledges of the most "open and honest" Congress in history. The American people don’t want the future of their health care being decided behind closed doors by three liberal Washington Democrats. That's why they need to fight harder than ever, speaking loudly and with one voice, saying "stop." ...

Republicans are focused on offering better solutions to help put people back to work, reduce the deficit, and get government out of the bailout business once and for all. We have also proposed the only health care bill that would reduce premiums by up to 10 percent and consistently reduce federal spending on health care over the next two decades.

Democratic National Committee chairman and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine: Years from now, when historians look back on 2009, they will recall a Christmas Eve vote in the Senate that took us one giant step closer to finally delivering health reform to the American people ....

This bill will help more than 30 million Americans access quality affordable insurance. It will outlaw the insurance industry's worst practices, prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition or retroactively canceling coverage when someone gets sick. It will lower premiums for individuals, families and businesses. And it will actually reduce our deficit by more than $130 billion over the next 10 years.

This bill accomplishes the goals President Obama articulated at the beginning of this debate: more stable and secure coverage for the insured, more quality affordable choices for the uninsured, and reducing the skyrocketing costs of care for everyone, including our government....

This victory for the American people comes despite the incessant and virulent obstructionism of Senate Republicans. Not one voted in a favor of reform - a crippling commentary on their failure to fulfill the responsibilities of leadership. As we move forward, the onus is on the GOP to explain why they sided with their insurance industry friends instead of American families - why they turned their backs on workers and small businesses who are struggling to stay afloat under the status quo.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele: This morning, as millions of Americans prepared to gather with their families in celebration of Christmas, President Obama and Harry Reid gathered with their liberal allies in celebration of government. Mr. Reid and company honored President Obama’s Christmas wish for increased federal control and passed their government-run health care experiment out of the Senate. Immediately following this vote, in a telling and strangely ironic legislative move, the Democrats voted to increase America’s credit card limit because even they know their deficit reduction claims are false. If they were truly proud of this so-called "historic" legislation then they should have stood by their pledge and allowed Senators and the American people 72 hours to read the full legislative text prior to voting instead of secretly rushing it through on Christmas Eve. In fact, most Democrats aren’t proud of this legislation and only voted for it after months of closed door meetings, back room deal making, and political compromise with Harry Reid and the White House. The Democrats have put a $2.5 trillion lump of coal in the stocking of every American knowing that their risky health care experiment still increases premiums, still cuts Medicare, and still enacts hundreds of billions of new taxes to pay for it. Scrooge would be proud. I know a majority of Americans are not. As we move forward, America can look forward to watching Nancy Pelosi conduct the arm-twisting needed to convince her most liberal colleagues that the Senate version is the best Trojan horse possible to hide a true single payer system, which is what this debate has always been about. This Christmas, the Democrats and President Obama have given America the one gift that keeps on taking.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.: It has been nearly two years since we began our work on health care reform here in the Senate. And all of that work has lead us to this moment -- to this historic vote.

As we stand at the finish line here in the Senate, we are not alone. We stand with those who have blazed the trail ahead of us -- tireless champions of reform, such as our good friend Ted Kennedy.

We stand with the millions of American families who have been forced into bankruptcy to cover the cost of caring for a loved one who is sick. We stand on behalf of the 45,000 Americans who die each year simply because they do not have health insurance and the millions more who live in fear ....

This is a bill we can all be proud of. This is a bill that will finally provide the reforms American families, businesses and workers have been waiting on for decades. But there is more to be done before we can put these reforms to work for the American people.

I look forward to working quickly with my colleagues to bring the Senate and House bills together and deliver meaningful health care reform legislation to President Obama’s desk so the American people can begin to see the benefits of these historic reforms as soon as possible.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc.: The Senate health care bill is far from perfect. I am deeply disappointed it does not include a public option to help keep down costs and I also don’t like the deal making that secured votes with unjustifiable provisions. I will work to improve the bill, including restoring the public option, when the final version is drafted.

But, while this bill could and should have been much stronger, it includes very important provisions for Wisconsin that I worked to include... The bill also ends discrimination by insurance companies against people with preexisting conditions, expands coverage to 30 million more Americans and reduces the deficit by an estimated $132 billion. Despite the bill's flaws, it does meet the test of real reform, and the cost of inaction was much too high.

Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Despite numerous polls showing the majority of Americans are opposed to the Senate health care bill, sixty senators chose to ignore their objections. The business community has been consistent in calling for health care reform, but the bill that was passed by the Senate today is counterproductive, does little to lower the cost of health care, and it is not reform. It implements crippling new taxes, and hurts our ability to create jobs at the worst possible time for the economy.

At every stage of the legislative process the business community has stood ready to work to improve health care legislation, but at almost every stage our concerns have been ignored.

We recognize that the health care debate is not over yet. We are hopeful that a conference between the Senate and House can bring all stakeholders back to the table. Since employers are the ones who will be responsible for putting this reform into practice, their concerns must be addressed. It is not too late for Congress to stop this bill from becoming law and start over with the goal of truly reforming our health care system.

Tom McMahon, acting executive director, Americans United for Change: Today we are one another step closer to guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for all Americans. There is still a great deal of work to be done to ensure the best possible bill reaches President Obama’s desk. But when historians look back on this moment – and they will – it will mark a turning point in our long struggle to build a health care system Americans deserve. It may also leave a remarkable and indelible imprint on the Republican Party, whose decision to put political posturing before the needs of millions of Americans will tarnish the reputation of the GOP for years to come.

Under the Senate bill, more than 30 million people will gain health coverage. The Medicare program will be stronger and the federal deficit smaller. People with pre-existing health conditions won’t be rejected or charged higher premiums by insurers, and women will no longer have to pay more than men for the same coverage. Seniors will have expanded prescription drug coverage and young adults will have easy access to health insurance. Americans from every corner of the country will have a reason to be thankful for the Senate’s action today.

Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager, Health Care for America Now: With passage by the Senate, the nation has moved one big step closer to comprehensive health care reform. Health Care for America Now will work to get the strongest bill to the President’s desk, one that provides good, affordable coverage to all and holds insurance companies accountable. To realize the promise of reform, we need to be sure that employers are required to help pay for good coverage for their workers, that premiums are affordable to families, that we do not tax benefits, that we enact tough insurance regulations, and that we offer the choice of a public health insurance option. We will urge President Obama to work with leaders in both houses of Congress to agree on legislation that meets these goals, guaranteeing good health coverage we can count on.

Karen Ignagni, president and CEO, America's Health Insurance Plans: Providing all Americans with health care coverage is crucial for the country. Health plans support legislative changes that would provide guaranteed access to all Americans, with no pre-existing condition limitations and no health-status-based premiums. These reforms are essential to giving all Americans greater peace of mind and health security.

At the same time, specific provisions in this legislation will increase, rather than decrease, health care costs; reduce coverage options; and disrupt existing coverage for families, seniors and small businesses – particularly between now and when the legislation is fully implemented in 2014.

These issues can and should be addressed if health care reform is going to fulfill the promise of providing all Americans with guaranteed access to affordable, portable health care coverage.

Ken Johnson, senior vice president, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA): We applaud the Senate for taking an important and historic step toward expanding high-quality, affordable health care coverage and services to tens of millions of Americans, many of whom are struggling today financially. While considerable work remains to be done in reconciling differences between the Senate and House bills, we remain convinced that comprehensive health care reform, if done in a smart way, will benefit patients, our economy and the future of our nation.

Most importantly, the Senate bill recognizes the importance of medical progress in America. Innovative, cutting-edge medicines have dramatically increased life expectancy rates in the United States and have allowed patients with cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other devastating chronic diseases to live longer, healthier and more productive lives. We strongly believe that everyone in America should benefit from promising new advances in medical care.

By expanding coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans, the Senate is moving decisively in that direction. We embrace reform efforts which put an end to practices such as denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions or charging higher premiums because of gender. We also support expanding Medicaid eligibility to 133 percent of federal poverty – something we first proposed along with Families USA.

Our commitment to comprehensive health care reform is evident by our $80 billion pledge to reduce health care costs over 10 years. To that end, our companies agreed back in June to help most eligible seniors and disabled Americans who hit the so-called "donut hole" in Medicare Part D cut their out-of-pocket expenses on brand-name medications in half as part of the Senate’s health care reform legislation. The remainder of our commitment will help the government expand health care coverage to millions of Americans.

In the final analysis, we believe the Senate bill provides the best blueprint for reform. It offers the kind of change that will benefit patients today without putting medical progress at risk in the future. Today, we believe the Senate voted with America’s best interests and future in mind.