Barack Obama signs landmark US healthcare bill into law
Mr Obama now has to sell the reforms to a divided American public
US President Barack Obama has signed his landmark healthcare bill into law in a ceremony at the White House.
The new law will eventually extend health insurance cover to about 32 million Americans who currently do not have any.
Mr Obama said he was signing the bill for people like his mother "who argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days".
The bill is strongly opposed by the Republicans, who say it is too costly.
 |  The bill I'm signing will set in motion reforms that generations of Americans have fought for and marched for and hungered to see  President Barack Obama |
Immediately after the signing, attorneys general from 13 states - 12 Republicans and one Democrat - began legal proceedings against the federal government seeking to stop the reforms on the grounds that they are unconstitutional.
Mr Obama was joined at the White House signing ceremony by healthcare reform supporters including Democrats from both Houses of Congress who supported the measure.
He said the bill's provisions were "desperately needed", adding: "The bill I'm signing will set in motion reforms that generations of Americans have fought for and marched for and hungered to see."
He hailed the "historic leadership and uncommon courage" of the Democratic leadership in Congress that secured the bill's passage, singling out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for particular praise.
| KEY HEALTHCARE REFORMS Cost: $940bn over 10 years; would reduce deficit by $143bn Coverage: Expanded to 32m currently uninsured Americans Medicare: Prescription drug coverage gap closed; affected over-65s receive rebate and discount on brand name drugs Medicaid: Expanded to include families under 65 with gross income of up to 133% of federal poverty level and childless adults Insurance reforms: Insurers can no longer deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions Insurance exchanges: Uninsured and self-employed able to purchase insurance through state-based exchanges Subsidies: Low-income individuals and families wanting to purchase own health insurance eligible for subsidies Individual Mandate: Those not covered by Medicaid or Medicare must be insured or face fine High-cost insurance: Employers offering workers pricier plans subject to tax on excess premium  |
He concluded: "Today after almost a century of trial, today after over a year of debate, today after all the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America. Today.
"All of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform."
Mr Obama now has to sell the reforms to a divided American public before November's mid-term elections.
On Thursday, he will go to the state of Iowa to talk about how the new law will help to lower healthcare costs for small businesses and families.
After a heated debate, the House of Representatives voted 219-212 late on Sunday to send the 10-year, $938bn bill to Mr Obama. Not one Republican voted for the bill, and some Democrats also voted against it.
The measure, which the Senate passed in December, is expected to expand health insurance coverage to about 95% of eligible Americans, compared with the 83% covered today.
It will ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with existing medical problems.
Correspondents say the bill represents the biggest expansion of the federal government's social safety net since President Lyndon Johnson enacted the Medicare and Medicaid government-funded healthcare programmes for the elderly and poor in the 1960s.
Mr Obama's campaign to overhaul US healthcare seemed stalled in January, when a Republican won a special election to fill the late Edward Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat, and with it, enough Republican votes to prevent the bill from coming to a final vote in the Senate.
But Democrats came up with a plan that required the House to approve the Senate-passed measure - despite its opposition to many of its provisions - and then have both chambers pass a measure incorporating numerous changes after the president signed it into law.
THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!
ReplyDeleteNot one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s syndrome child.
Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example.
Each smallest act of kindness – even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile – reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.
Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will.
All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined – those dead, those living, those generations yet to come – that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.
Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength – the very survival – of the human tapestry.
Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!
Excerpt from Dean Koontz’s book, “From the Corner of His Eye”.
It embodies the idea of how the smallest of acts can have such a profound effect on each of our lives.