Barack Obama last night forced his bitterly fought healthcare reform bill through Congress, bringing near-universal coverage to Americans and delivering the first major triumph of his presidency.
After days of manoeuvring by the Democratic party leadership to bring dissident party legislators on board and an impassioned plea on Saturday by Obama, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, confirmed that the votes were in the bag. She said she would not have decided to take the bill to a vote unless the necessary 216 Democrats had been secured to push the move through. As it was, the bill was passed by 219 votes to 212.
“Tonight, at a time when the pundits said it was no longer possible, we rose above the weight of our politics,” Obama said during a late-night appearance at the White House.
“This legislation will not fix everything that ails our healthcare system, but it moves us decisively in the right direction. This is what change looks like.”
Despite not going as far as many liberals had hoped, the bill will take the US close to universal healthcare coverage and Obama will have achieved the goal that eluded US presidents dating back to Theodore Roosevelt a century ago.
The reform, which will cost an estimated $940bn (£627bn) over 10 years, amounts to a massive change in US healthcare provision, expanding care to 32 million more people, predominantly the poorest, and giving the country 95% coverage.
Read more at The Guardian.
Tags: US healthcare
It has been fascinating to see the vitriolic language used by some Americans in opposition to this bill. It is difficult for us Brits to see the extension of healthcare to the many as ‘an attack on freedom’! However, it might make us reflect on the attitude of some of our countrymen that healthcare is a ‘right’. Most of us would agree (and accept) that no one should be denied healthcare because of their inability to pay for it (at the time); but the fact is that such care costs money and it has to be paid by someone, somehow. The real debate should be about HOW we should pay for it. All ‘Western’ developed countries are having a problem with the delivery of healthcare - because modern medicine can now provide effective, but costly, ‘cures’ (or, sometimes, palliation) for conditions that were previously lethal. So, the ‘demand’ for such treatments exceeds the ’supply’ - often in specialist manpower as well as money. In such circumstances there has to be some form of ‘rationing’ - by waiting lists, ‘priorities’, limited funding from taxation or limited ‘cover’ from insurers.