It looks as though the Senate will pass a bill.

In the early hours...of the shortest day of the year...the Senate overcame the first of three Republican roadblocks. Two more procedural attempts to derail the legislation before Christmas will occur; but it is likely the Democrats and other supporters will sweep those aside and we will have a Senate bill.

The bill differs a great deal from the bill passed by the House. There will need to be a consolidation of the plans.

I have not read the complete Senate bill. Giveaways to really small populations to overcome their Senator's blackmail is not what I like to read about. Businessweek reported on a bit of this:

Vermont and Massachusetts also won additional Medicaid funds; plastic surgeons were persuasive in their bid to strip out a proposed tax on elective plastic surgery; hospitals in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana won additional Medicare funds; and there was more money for hospitals in Hawaii to treat the uninsured.

But, I didn't have to vote on it, we'll read the Senate version once it is clear and then compare it to the House version in an effort to discuss it objectively.

In the meantime, I like this description of where we are in the process from a discussion at DemocraticUnderground.com.

As we get closer to the end of the year and your business is looking for tax savings, remember that certain insurance premiums are tax deductible as a business expense. I have posted an article on that issue that explains the most common premium deductions.

It is often worthwhile, especially if you are a small business on a cash accounting system, to review those liability policies that have renewal dates close to the new year. For example, a professional liability policy may have a six-month premium of $1000 due on February 1, 2010. If that premium is paid in advance (assuming the insurer allows) by year end, then the realization of that deduction comes for the 2009 tax year. Assuming a real tax rate of 20-30%, that could be a savings of $200 to $300.

Health care savings accounts, certain life insurance and key man premiums, liability insurance, and other premiums paid by year end will help at tax time...a bare five months from now.

Yesterday, I posted about climate change insurance. Someone sent me an e-mail suggesting that I had gotten the idea of the post from a Thomas L. Friedman (as in three-time Pulitzer Prize winning author for the NYT, Thomas L. Friedman) December 8, 2009 op-ed post. In that piece, Mr. Friedman writes about climate change:

"When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is "irreversible" and potentially "catastrophic," I buy insurance. That is what taking climate change seriously is all about."

Nope, I had not seen this brilliant piece. But, I certainly agree with it.

Climate change and global warming. Topics that can ignite debate among educated scientists as well as politicians and those who elect them. Stephen Schnieder, a climate scientist, writing for The Huffington Post, summarized the global warming debate quite well:

"The past 40 years, when attached at the end of a reconstruction of the temperatures of the past 1000 years, look like a bit like a "hockey stick" with a wavy handle but a "blade" that rises above the climatic history of the millennium and exhibits the warmest decades in the record in the past 30 or so years. This reconstruction has been the object of intense arguments between the climatologists who constructed the hockey stick and some skeptical attackers who claimed it was erroneous."

What do we do when we have a remote risk with catastrophic consequences if the risk occurs? Sure, your restaurant is unlikely to catch fire and burn to the ground; but, if it does? Smart business people insure against the risk.

With world leaders arriving in Copenhagen this week to discuss climate change, I found myself thinking about climate change the same way I view any business risk: can steps be taken to reduce the risk and, if the worst happens, can the business recover?

Fareed Zakaria, writer and political analyst for CNN, proposed similar thoughts in a recent commentary. Mr. Zakaria points out that an estimated 5% of global GDP was used to address the world "financial crisis," why not use a percentage of world GDP as an insurance "premium" against future climate catastrophe? He points out that most of the investment of the "premiums" would go into areas that would benefit the economy and reduce dependence on unsustainable energy.

Climate change debate today is much like the consumer-product safety debate over the past fifty years. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is fifty years old this year. Insurers took up auto safety in an organized fashion to reduce risk. By reducing risk across an industry, insurers saved lives and reduced claims--in short, they saved money. Today insurers are realizing that prevention, education, and enforcement of green initiatives is a way to reduce the catastrophic risk--and associated potential claims--of global climate change.

Ultimately, it may be the global marketplace, led by insurers, that accomplishes sustainable and realistic goals in this environmental debate before the world leaders and scientists in Copenhagen can come to any consensus on what those goals would be.