After seven long days of partisan haggling, the Senate Finance Committee early Friday morning wrapped up its debate on the panel’s sweeping health reform legislation, including a last-minute deal to ease the penalties on those who fail to comply with the requirement that nearly everyone buy health insurance.
Coming into the day’s debate, the bill would have penalized families as much as $1,900 for going uninsured — a provision that drew sharp criticism from Sen. Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican being courted by Democrats as …