US House passes Obama's key healthcare reform

The US House of Representatives has narrowly voted to pass a landmark healthcare reform bill at the heart of President Barack Obama's agenda.

The bill passed by 219 votes to 212, with no Republican backing, after hours of fierce argument and debate.

It extends coverage to 32 million more Americans, and marks the biggest change to the US healthcare system in decades.

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bbc

its a start....

As an American, I cannot begin to tell you how delighted I am. I stayed up late just to watch the House vote.

Calling this new law a "key" reform is an understatement. It's literally the most important domestic legislation America has passed since the 1960's. From the very day President Obama took office, the Republicans declared their intention to bog his health care plan down in the muck and mire of parliamentary procedure. They succeeded in dragging it out for more than a full year but tonight they finally lost and lost dramatically.

I know a great many of you Brits view America's health care fight with bewilderment. From my perspective, there's only one way to explain it to you. A great bulwark of Ronald Reagan's rhetorical legacy has finally collapsed and it has only happened today. From the very moment Reagan assumed our presidency way back in 1980 he spoke of health care reform as tantamount to bringing communism to America. The American right-wing has been literally transfixed by the notion ever since. That idea remains so strong on the American right to this day that tonight's vote succeeded by only a single-digit margin in our House of 435 members.

Imagine a place where more than 30 million people will gain health care coverage they've never enjoyed before. That's more than half the population of England. That's the true scale of the victory that was won here tonight. Imagine an America where the Republican party has fought tooth-and-nail for decades to stop it from happening. Only tonight did they finally lose.

The world beyond America views President Obama mostly by his foreign policy agenda. Back here in America, we have long viewed our health care fight as being at least equally important to foreign policy. It's a thing that's divided our country for decades in all the wrong ways. I'm sure that most of you will form your opinions of Obama based on his ability manage violent conflicts on the global stage. I would ask you to keep just one thing in mind. An overwhelmingly large portion of Obama's time during his first fourteen months in office has been expended just to win this one health care fight for the American people, despite all Republican efforts to stop him. The fact that he has finally won here is of gigantic importance.

This is the first truly great achievement of his presidency. It has only come to pass today. All that said, it is now my great hope that Obama will redouble his efforts to bring soldiers home from the foreign wars, be they American, British or any other part of our coalition abroad. It is with some trepidation that I note that the tremendous amount of time he's spent on American health care wars may have limited the time he might devote to international peace. Such are the limitations of an American president, be they right or wrong.

I sincerely hope that the end of America's great health care fixation at home will lead to more time for our president to devote abroad. In a perfect world, there would be no such conflict between unrelated issues but to this point it has happened to the Obama presidency. The good news is that we've really won this health care battle at home. We've taken a step beyond our old internal fight that Reagan sowed here and has consumed us for more than a generation.

The time is now ripe for Obama to look past our domestic problems and become more forceful on the world stage. I'm expecting a brand-new flurry of Obama trips abroad starting right now. A great weight has been lifted from his shoulders at home and now is the perfect time to charge into foreign policy anew. I hope it happens.

Brubricker said:

A great bulwark of Ronald Reagan's rhetorical legacy has finally collapsed and it has only happened today. From the very moment Reagan assumed our presidency way back in 1980 he spoke of health care reform as tantamount to bringing communism to America. The American right-wing has been literally transfixed by the notion ever since.

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Yea, Reaganism was defeated tonight. Wish Obama had come out swinging many months ago & it would probably be a better bill. It's not good enough but it's a huge step in the right direction.

TomUS said:

Yea, Reaganism was defeated tonight. Wish Obama had come out swinging many months ago & it would probably be a better bill. It's not good enough but it's a huge step in the right direction.

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Politics is the art of the possible. Obama won what was possible. He was in no position to force anything more. The House passed it by a mere seven votes.

You take what you can win this time and you push for more the next time around. There will be a next time.

Finally Obama has achieved something to meet the dreams and hopes of those who invested so much in his election. Congratulations America

Brubricker said:

Politics is the art of the possible. Obama won what was possible. He was in no position to force anything more. The House passed it by a mere seven votes.

You take what you can win this time and you push for more the next time around. There will be a next time.

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That,s what i thought this may be just one battle with more to come .America is the only first/ second world country with out medical care free at the point of need. I am glad for the american people

Brubricker said:

Politics is the art of the possible. Obama won what was possible. He was in no position to force anything more. The House passed it by a mere seven votes.

You take what you can win this time and you push for more the next time around. There will be a next time.

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Hey,"Politics is the art of the possible" is my line. I agree. This is the first step in a long battle. But, it's a major breakthrough.....if we can keep it. The Repubs will run on repealing it.

This thing passed without a single Repub vote......something for the Dems to be proud of.

I do think Obama could have gotten better, but he pulled it out in the end......great.

The final nail in the coffin of hopes of a Universal Health Care system. End of the road. not the start.

Do you think that the health-insurance lobby would for one second permit their pocket Congressmen to pass the Great Healthcare Bill if it were truly detrimental to their interests? Of course not. The Great Healthcare Bill does nothing to help the consumer of healthcare. If it did, it would revoke the monopoly exemptions of health insurance companies and encourage a great flourishing of insurance competition, which as we all know would serve to decrease the price of same. It would allow consumers to purchase plans covering only healthcare they expected to need, rather than mandating that every plan include e.g. gender reassignment surgery, chemical birth control, and cognitive behavioural therapy. Instead, what it actually does is *gasp* force health insurance companies by law to take on new customers. Way to stick it to big business, there, Obama.

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http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2010/03/so-youd-like-to-emigrate-to-america.html

That says most of what I have to say about this law. Not covered in that article is a related problem of the huge differential in taxation between salary and healthcare benefits, which of course helps drive up costs. The problem with the US healthcare system always was too much regulation, and now they've added more

butchersapron said:

The final nail in the coffin of hopes of a Universal Health Care system. End of the road. not the start.

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Oh no.....I'm optimistic a little. I saw Clinton's thing go down 15 years ago. I'm amazed Obama got what he did. I think it can be the foundation of a universal system......but step by step. The biggest industry in the US being rattled. People will be helped. Positive development I think.

The biggest industry (private health care insurers etc) in the US has just been handed guaranteed trillions in tax dollars in perpetuity. That's why they lobbied for it with hundreds of millions of dollars and got exactly the bill they wanted, and that's why a clause making it illegal for states to set up their own genuine Universal Health Care systems was tacked on. This is it, they're never ever going to let that go now. Game over.

Good thing the government is going to pay for it all and not burden the people with more taxes.

butchersapron said:

The biggest industry (private health care insurers etc) in the US has just been handed guaranteed trillions in tax dollars in perpetuity. That's why they lobbied for it with hundreds of millions of dollars and got exactly the bill they wanted, and that's why a clause making it illegal for states to set up their own genuine Universal Health Care systems was tacked on.

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Dennis Kucinich seems to have taken a similar line but eventually came to the view that it was better the bill was passed with all that in mind than the bill be defeated and have even the idea of healthcare reform in the wilderness for years. Seems fairly marginal either way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/dennis-kucinich-health-care_n_502182.html

Combustible said:

Dennis Kucinich seems to have taken a similar line but eventually came to the view that it was better the bill was passed with all that in mind than the bill be defeated and have even the idea of healthcare reform in the wilderness for years. Seems fairly marginal either way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/dennis-kucinich-health-care_n_502182.html

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Kunnich had his hand forced by Obama telling him he would fund candidates against him in November. I can see some logic in his pragmatism, as regards getting the idea of changes to health care into accepted political discourse - i.e opening up the possibility in a change of direction away from this insurers bail-out that this bill is.

To Brits, the NHS is often seen one of our greatest achievements, but in America it's deemed to be some sort of outpost of communism, with the familiar line being, "why should I pay for some bum to get better?"

butchersapron said:

The biggest industry (private health care insurers etc) in the US has just been handed guaranteed trillions in tax dollars in perpetuity. That's why they lobbied for it with hundreds of millions of dollars and got exactly the bill they wanted, and that's why a clause making it illegal for states to set up their own genuine Universal Health Care systems was tacked on. This is it, they're never ever going to let that go now. Game over.

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Nahhhh......game not over I think. Yep, they've gotten a whole bunch of new business subsidized by the taxpayer. But so what? I don't really give a shit as long as many more folks have health ins. Additional positive changes can come from this too.

ExtraRefined said:

http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2010/03/so-youd-like-to-emigrate-to-america.html

That says most of what I have to say about this law. Not covered in that article is a related problem of the huge differential in taxation between salary and healthcare benefits, which of course helps drive up costs. The problem with the US healthcare system always was too much regulation, and now they've added more

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There's one very important thing you don't understand. Today is the first day in our ENTIRE HISTORY when we've had a single unified national health care policy. Up to now, every one of the 50 states set their own individual regulations for the industry. This led to a situation where healthcare companies subdivided themselves state-by-state. Everyone on this side of the pond is routinely accustomed to dealing with Blue Cross Insurance of California or Blue Cross of New York or Blue Cross of Florida and so on. These companies subdivided themselves in order to deal with the byzantine nightmare of 50 different sets of state regulations. They needed to have individual divisions which were expert in the unique regulations of each state.

Now, and only NOW, do we have a true national set of standards. You talk about the problem of regulation. Well, we've had too many different regulations from state to state. This was inefficiency writ-large. The mere fact that we've finally defeated Republican efforts to preserve this bizarre system is an enormous step forward. Health care providers can now, FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME, set truly national policy standards for their own companies.

American health care has, to this point, been absolutely ludicrous in ways that few outsiders could ever understand. Today we effectively broke the back of our hyper-regionalized system. That one achievement is, in and of itself, gigantically important.

editor said:

To Brits, the NHS is often seen one of our greatest achievements, but in America it's deemed to be some sort of outpost of communism, with the familiar line being, "why should I pay for some bum to get better?"

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If you personally cover me I don't care what happens to anyone else.

editor said:

To Brits, the NHS is often seen one of our greatest achievements, but in America it's deemed to be some sort of outpost of communism, with the familiar line being, "why should I pay for some bum to get better?"

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The UK & Canada are constantly held up as horror stories of what could happen here......govt takeover......long lines......long waiting periods......death panels.

dilute micro said:

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Oh, so the problem lies in the French Alps? Tell it to the French.

Massive thumbs up from me

Obama does it:the Health Care Bill passes into law...

Barack Obama's healthcare bill passed by Congress

US president says 'this is what change looks like' about reform that ensures coverage for 95% of Americans

* Ewen MacAskill in Washington
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 March 2010 07.30 GMT

US president says 'this is what change looks like' as legislation ensuring health coverage for 95% of Americans is backed Link to this video

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."

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It may not mean much on here but for 32 million uninsured Americans the vote earler today is the best news they could have imagined, the USwill now have near universalheaht care insurance, (thought it is not a state run NHS system yet), Obama has made his mark on history,he showed real political courage in the face of baying mobs and may yet become the new FDR.

This is amazing but Im worried about the small print. Is there any loop holes or is it just like the NHS?

oh

Seems ironic that the US are just getting their universal healthcare as we're in the process of sleepwalking into losing ours.

But despite that gloomy thought, this is good news.
Edit: well, or so it seemed before the post below
*goes off to do some more research*

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=319932

No it's not the NHS in any way at all you dummy.

This doesn't extend coverage to 30 million more people - it force those poorest 30 million to bu private health insurance or pay a fine, a fine which is smaller than getting the insurance costs, guess what happens next?

This is the end of the hopes of a single payer universal health care system in the US.

Hang on. What's the real difference her?.

Gov funds insurance, insurance pays private hospitals like a privatised NHS?

I don't really know what happened. How is it still through health insurers, and why is it not completely universal?

I'm appalled at the UK reporting and reception of this as well - the assumption seems to be that health care reform (and from a lovely democrat) can only mean moving towards an NHS model. This bill is a BUPA bill - it makes BUPA compulsory,