Health care reform is now formally on the move with the Senate Finance Committee’s passage of a historic bill that got the support of all Democrats and one moderate Republican.

If it isn’t the undisputed bipartisan vote that the White House sought, it isn’t the totally Democratic party vote that the White House feared. So it’s likely to advance the drive to come up with a bill by the end of the year — and accentuate pressures on lawmakers from those on both sides who want a bill or want to see one defeated for financial and/or political reasons. The New York Times framed the vote this way:

The Senate Finance Committee voted on Tuesday to approve legislation that would reshape the American health care system and provide subsidies to help millions of people buy insurance, as Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, joined all 13 Democrats on the panel in support of the landmark bill.

The vote was 14 to 9, with all of the other Republicans opposed.

Democrats, including President Obama, had courted Ms. Snowe’s vote, hoping that she would break with the Republican Party leadership and provide at least a veneer of bipartisanship to the bill, which Mr. Obama has declared his top domestic priority. Ms. Snowe was a main author of the bill but she had never committed to voting for it.

But shortly after 1 p.m., she announced that she was on board, in a speech that silenced the packed committee room and riveted colleagues on both sides of the dais.

“Is this bill all that I would want?” Ms. Snowe asked. “Far from it. Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls. And I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress to take every opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to solve the monumental issues of our time.”

In her speech, she said she still shared many of her Republican colleagues’ reservations about the legislation, and she pointedly warned Democrats that they could easily lose her support at any of the many legislative steps that still lie ahead.

“My vote today is my vote today,” she said. “It doesn’t forecast what my vote will be tomorrow.”

Bloomberg reported it like this:

The Senate Finance Committee approved an $829 billion plan to overhaul U.S. health care, clearing the way for a full Senate debate over the broadest expansion of the government’s role in the medical system since the creation of Medicare in 1965.

Just one Republican on the panel, Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, voted for the measure in an otherwise party-line 14-9 tally. That marked the first time a Republican in either the Democratic-controlled Senate or House has supported the revamp legislation, President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

“Ours is a balanced plan that can pass the Senate,” said panel Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat.

Baucus had spent months courting Snowe and other Republicans, making his committee the last of five congressional panels to complete its version of the legislation. Senate and House Democratic leaders must now merge the bills and schedule floor debates. After each chamber votes, they’ll have to reconcile their measures.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will meld the finance panel bill with one approved by the Senate health committee in July, forcing him to resolve differences over a host of issues that divide both political parties and risk rupturing Democratic unity.

Reuters ran this “fact box” of winners and losers in the vote.

Euronews:

By gaining the support of an influential Republican, the key finance committee gave the green light to the reform in a 14 to 9 vote.

Senator Olympia Snowe becoming the first Republican in Congress to back a healthcare bill.

It’s a major victory for President Barack Obama who had made it his top domestic priority.

He’s been facing fierce resistance from the private healthcare industry.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza says the GOP vote is a legislative victory for two reasons:

First, the White House — and President Obama himself — lavished attention on Snowe over the past weeks in an all-out effort to win her support for the bill in the Finance Committee. In fact, Snowe’s “when history calls, history calls” explanation of her vote sounded strikingly similar to the sort of rhetoric coming out of the Obama White House regarding the health care bill.

For a White House that has taken a series of hits of late for their lack of effectiveness in the sort of political horse-trading that can make or break an administration, this is rightly seen both as a victory and a finger-in-the-eye to those who were questioning Obama’s political radar after the Olympics debacle late last month.

Second, with Snowe on board, the White House — and the liberal left — now have a key piece of leverage to bring to bear on wavering moderate Democrats. You can almost hear the argument being made to the likes of Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.); “Snowe is for it, how can you not be?”

While Snowe’s support is no guarantee that moderate Democrats will ultimately support the bill, it does give them some level of political cover to do so. With a Republican backing the bill, people like Lincoln, who faces a serious reelection test next fall, can vote for what they can accurately describe to voters as a bipartisan effort to reform the health care system. (Assuming Snowe is the only Republican who votes for the bill on final passage, you can expect Lincoln’s eventual opponent to dismiss a single GOP vote as something short of true bipartisanship.)

Finally, from a practical perspective Snowe’s support for the bill means that Democrats can afford to lose one of their own and still have the 60 votes they need to break filibusters and bring the legislation to the floor. That means that someone — someone like Ben Nelson, perhaps — may be able to vote “no” without bringing the entire health care reform process to a grinding halt. That calculus would change, however, if Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who is in poor health, was unable to cast a vote — narrowing to almost zero the Democrats’ wiggle room.

USA Today:

Republicans, including Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, called the bill partisan, said it is heavy on new taxes and argued that it will not live up to a promise made by Obama that people who like the coverage they have can keep it. “This bill will allow you to do anything but keep your coverage,” Hatch said.

Len Nichols, a health care economist with the New America Foundation, called the vote “historic,” noting that President Bill Clinton’s health care legislation never cleared the committee process in 1994.

The committee vote clears the way for debate by the full House and Senate. Before that, the proposal must be merged with a health care bill crafted by Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Any Senate bill will have to be reconciled with legislation in the House, where Democratic leaders are working to meld bills from three committees.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate health committee, predicted that Obama will have a health bill to sign by Christmas. “The momentum is such now that it’s unstoppable,” he said.

As he reconciles the differences in the Senate bills, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will attempt to secure at least 60 votes for the merged bill to prevent a filibuster from blocking the measure on the Senate floor. One key difference in the bills: The finance legislation does not include a government-run insurance program. The health bill does, as does the House bill.

But, The Plumline Reports, Senate Minority Lead Mitch McConnell contends Snowe’s break with the GOP is no big deal — since the bill will never become law:

Senator Olympia Snowe’s surprise announcement today that she’ll vote for the Senate Finance Committee bill is the first decisive legislative break by any Republican from the GOP caucus overall on health care, and as such, it’s a big step towards realizing reform.

But GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell has found the upside in the news: The Finance bill will never become law; and in any case, the real final bill is being worked out by Dems behind closed doors, and it doesn’t constitute “real reform.”

…It’s very possible that Snowe’s reasonable, bipartisan posture now will make it easier for her to not support the final bill later. The flipside, though, is that Snowe’s support means there’s no longer any credible way that Republicans can argue that Dems didn’t pursue bipartisan compromise — and it serves as a reminder that the vast majority of Republicans refused to support reform, despite many concessions from Dems.

Newsweek blogger Katie Conn0lly looks at the meaning of Snowe’s vote:

She’s only committing to let the bill be considered by the entire Senate. On the Senate floor, her vote is far from a sure thing, especially if liberal Democrats start tinkering with the bill in a way that moves it more toward their liking. She’s probably reinforced her power: she’s the one Republican that Reid knows he can get when he melds Baucus’s bill with the one that emerged from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. He’s now even more likely to construct his leadership bill in a way that suits her, rather than shift toward the more progressive wing of his party. She may have even bought herself a seat at his table while he works to combine the bills. At the very least, her voice will loom large in those discussions.

Snowe’s vote has broader political ramifications. She’s restored some credibility to Max Baucus. He’s been battered from here to Wasilla for spending two long months trying in earnest to negotiate with Republicans, only to be dumped by almost all of them. Now, his efforts have borne fruit. Her vote also makes it more difficult for moderate Democrats like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman—who both worked to secure her vote for the stimulus earlier this year—to justify thumbing their noses at the reform bill. (Although I’m betting we start hearing a lot more from those two real soon.) But Snowe may very well suffer for her actions. She’s in line to become the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee when her colleague Kay Bailey Hutchinson retires in order to run for governor of Texas, but The Hill reports that some Republicans are considering denying her the top spot as payback for what they see as her health-care heresy.

Adds Time Magazine’s Kate Pickert:

It takes 60 votes to end a filibuster on the Senate floor and allow a bill to come up for a vote, which needs only a simple majority. It’s possible Snowe and some conservative Democrats could vote to end a filibuster and still vote against a final bill.

The task ahead is for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to pull together the Finance and HELP committee bills into a single piece of legislation. While this work has undoubtedly already begun, there are significant differences between the bills to reconcile, including the public option. The HELP Committee bill includes one; the Finance Committee bill does not. While the decision over the public option will be contentious, it’s important to keep the process in perspective. Health reform has never been closer to reality.

The Hill:

Healthcare reform now lies in the hands of Democratic leaders in Congress, senior White House aides and Obama himself.

Democratic Sens. Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.) had expressed grave misgivings about the bill and had been coy about their intentions until the moment they cast their votes, but each ultimately decided to keep healthcare reform moving.

Rockefeller offered a parting shot as the bill was poised to exit the Finance Committee. “The bill still does falls short of what people need and what they expect from us,” Rockfeller said. “It’s a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.”

Wyden sounded a similar note.

“My vote today to advance this bill forward is a judgment that there is enough good will in this committee and this Congress to move this bill ahead in a bipartisan way,” Wyden said.

“There are some forces that want to stop healthcare reform from happening,” Wyden said, adding, “I don’t want to do anything to advance that cause.”

Wyden said he intends to continue pushing to make insurance more affordable and to give more people who currently get coverage at work access to the health insurance exchange.

VIDEOS:

Fox Business notes that there’s no guarentee the Dems can finish health reform by this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj6xHnYBjgU&feature=player_embedded
NBC: Republicans have condemned the health care reform plan:

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NBC’s report on the vote:

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Obama thanks the committee and says Snowe has been diligent on the health care issue:

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Snowe’s announcement on why she would vote Yes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f3BntIAjKo