US Senate passes sweeping Democrat health and climate bill

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(CNN) --

The Senate voted Sunday afternoon to pass the sweeping Democratic health and climate bill and sent it to the House of Representatives, in a major victory for US President Joe Biden and your party.

The bill - called the Reducing Inflation Act - would represent the largest climate investment in US history and introduce major changes in health policy, giving Medicare for the first time the power to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs and extend expiring health care subsidies for three years.

The legislation would reduce the deficit, pay for it with new taxes -- including a 15% minimum tax on large companies and a 1% tax on share buybacks -- and increase the collection capacity of the Internal Revenue Service.

It would raise more than $700 billion in public revenue over 10 years and spend more than $430 billion to reduce carbon emissions and extend Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies, and use the rest of new income to reduce the deficit.

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The package is the result of painstaking negotiations, and its passage would give Democrats a chance to achieve important political goals before the upcoming midterm elections.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives must pass the bill on Friday, August 12, before Biden can sign it into law.

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Senate Democrats, with a narrow 50-seat majority, stood together to pass the legislation, using a special process to pass the measure without Republican votes.

The final approval came after a marathon series of contentious votes on amendments known as "vote-a-rama", which lasted from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon.