Bob Corker

Staff Photo by John Rawlston Poatie Bazemore, Lindsay Butler and Kim Willett, from left, hold signs in favor of health care reform as they stand at the corner of MLK Boulevard and Georgia Avenue on Wednesday afternoon.

The one GOP "yes" vote Tuesday on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's health care bill is no predictor of how Republicans will view the bill that comes to the Senate floor, senators from Tennessee and Georgia said.

"I do not think, at the end of the day, that there will be much Republican support," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. "I care deeply about appropriate health care reform. I do not see that in the legislation that's come forth."

Sen. Corker said Republicans are "meeting daily to look at the types of amendments we might put forward to try to make this bill something that is appropriate."

U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said things he would find appropriate would include incentives for preventative care, tort reform and funding through tax credits and tax deductions.

After Tuesday's 14-9 Senate Finance Committee vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., now must merge that bill with a bill passed earlier in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Debate on the bill that emerges from that process will begin Oct. 26, according to the Associated Press.

In remarks on the Senate floor, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said Wednesday he believes the bill would lead to Medicare cuts, but also higher premiums and higher taxes on insurers.

Sen. Alexander asked for the full text of the combined bill and an official cost projection to be posted online for 72 hours before moving forward with a vote.

"If it takes two weeks, if it takes three weeks, if it takes four weeks, we need to know it," he said.

A report released Sunday by America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry group, argues that the Finance Committee bill will mean higher premiums.

Anne Curtis, a protester outside Sen. Alexander's Chattanooga office on Wednesday, said she's "not putting much trust in that report."

Ms. Curtis was one of about 15 people gathered at the corner of Georgia Avenue and M.L. King Boulevard for a protest organized by the liberal activist Web site MoveOn.org. Among the protesters was a rubber skeleton in a chair holding a sign saying, "I'm dying without health care."

Another protester, Dan Bowles, of Cleveland, Tenn., said he can't get health insurance through his employer and, with his wife's pre-existing condition, he can't afford to buy it.

"The premiums would be more than our combined income," he said.

Sen. Corker, Sen. Chambliss and U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., also criticized the Finance Committee bill's funding mechanism, which cuts about $500 billion from Medicare payments to health care providers.

Still, Sen. Isakson said he was cautious about making any predictions until the bills are merged.

"You cannot just sit here and say I'm all for it or all against it when you don't even know what it is yet," he said.

Sen. Isakson, who sits on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, voted against that committee's version of the bill, which included a public option.

"I don't think you need to destroy 86 percent of what the American public has in order to cover 14 percent of the public that doesn't have coverage," he said.

The Finance Committee bill does not include a public option.

POLL DATA

A recent poll of 716 Tennessee adults found:

* 63 percent consider health care reform "very important" or "extremely important"

* 46 percent generally oppose health care proposals in Congress

* 36 percent generally support health care proposals in Congress

* 17 percent are "undecided" on health care reform proposals in Congress

Source: Middle Tennessee State University