Obama signs historic healthcare overhaul into law

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama sealed a hard-fought victory on Tuesday by signing into law a landmark healthcare reform measure that will help shape his legacy and the Democrats' chances of holding power in the Congress.



"We have now just enshrined...the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their healthcare," Obama said in a ceremony in the jammed East Room of the White House, with Democratic members of Congress and others cheering heartily.

But 13 of the 50 U.S. states went to federal court and filed a lawsuit challenging the measure just minutes after Obama signed it into law. The states assert that the new law violates state's rights provisions of the U.S. Constitution. The states argue that Congress lacks authority under the Constitution to regulate interstate commerce to require people to buy health insurance, as the new law does. The White House has said it does not expect the suit to be successful.

The new law is designed to revamp the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry.

The law extends insurance coverage to 32 million Americans, expands the government health plan for the poor, imposes new taxes on the wealthy and bars insurance company practices like refusing cover to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

Most of the state officials who filed the suit challenging the law were Republicans.

Read more: Reuters

Video: Obama signs healthcare into law

 

With stroke of a pen, Obama signs health reform into law

"Today after almost a century of trying, today after over a year of debate, today after all the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law in the United States," Obama said at a ceremony with Democratic lawmakers at the White House.

"I am signing this reform bill into law on behalf of my mother, who argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days," Obama said.

Source: Reuters

 

Never forget this day, Tuesday, March 23, 2010. The day history was made!

 

Though I disagree with much that is President Obama I have to admit to give him credit for pulling off something other Presidents (Teddy, Franklin, Truman, the Clinton's) could not pull off. Whether you love him or hate him, at least give him that much.

 

Gap in health care bill's protection for children

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's new health care law has a gap when it comes to one of its much-touted immediate benefits, improved coverage for children in poor health, congressional officials confirmed Tuesday.



March 23, 2010

Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill that Obama signed into law Tuesday.

However, if a child is accepted for coverage, or is already covered, the insurer cannot not exclude payment for treating a particular illness, as sometimes happens now. For example, if a child has asthma, the insurance company cannot write a policy that excludes that condition from coverage. The new safeguard will be in place later this year.

Full protection for children would come in 2014, said Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, another panel that authored the legislation. That's the same year when insurance companies could no longer deny coverage to any person on account of health problems.

Read more: The Associated Press

 

this is truly one of those days...i remember when i was little girl i would hear adults talking about the day that JFK was killed and they would remember where they were that day etc...there will always be certain days that stick in your mind...i remember vividly the day of the columbine shooting...9/11 attacks...my son's birth...etc...this is one of those days...what obama has accomplished is amazing...lippy also admires nancy pelosi the speaker of the house...the media is calling her "the" most powerful woman...i am in awe of her much in the same way i would assume the men here are in awe of obama...it really is a glass ceiling time in our lives...we have come so far...yet still have a long way to go...

 

Nancy Pelosi should be given credit too. Whether you like her or not. I admire strong women who can knock heads in a man's world to get things done. They have a history to prove it. Bhutto, Thatcher, Gandhi, and especially Goldie kicked some ass in a man's world.

 

Cheers and Applause for Nancy Pelosi

Give her credit for the health care bill too.


Pelosi gets a big hand from House members after signing the Senate health care reform bill.

Asked in an ABC interview Monday if she's the "most powerful woman in 100 years," Pelosi paused, then smiled, "That sounds good."

Even fervent Obama boosters concede Pelosi's clear-eyed commitment to liberal reform, steely determination and tenacity in whipping nervous Democrats into line made the difference between ignominious failure and victory.

"She's Lyndon Johnson in a skirt," Democratic political strategist Mark Siegel said of the San Francisco grandmother, who turns 70 Friday. "She was patient, tireless, persistent and cajoling - and she pulled off what no one else could."

Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Queens) thinks her work ethic and strategic vision top all her attributes. "I can't think of a smarter person on policy or politics," he said. "And I've never seen anyone work as hard at it as she does at both."

Source: NY Daily News

 

you quoted my post...perhaps you didn't read it correctly...i do admire nancy pelosi very much...she grew up in politics...when asked during an interview with diane sawyer, "what would your father say? or did he have a catch phrase that you remember?" her response, "you have to have the votes"

she is truly amazing

 

Top 10 facts to know about health care reform

By Angie Drobnic Holan
Published on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 7:09 p.m.
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We go beyond the slogans and tell you what's really in the bill.


PolitiFact has checked hundreds of claims about health care reform and read the plans under consideration by Congress. As the Democrats move toward a final vote, we've selected 10 facts about the actual health care legislation that every voter should know. Agree with the measure or not, here's what it intends to do and where the big unknowns are. We've linked to our previous reporting on each issue throughout the story; click through for even more sources.
1. The plan is not a government takeover of health care like in Canada or Britain. The government will not take over hospitals or other privately run health care businesses. Doctors will not become government employees, like in Britain. And the U.S. government intends to help people buy insurance from private insurance companies, not pay all the bills like the single-payer system in Canada. The key parts of the current U.S. system -- employer-provided insurance, Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor -- would stay in place. The government would create health insurance exchanges for people who have to buy insurance on their own, so they could more easily compare plans and prices.
2. Insurance companies will be regulated more heavily. They will be told the minimum services they must cover, including preventive care. They will have to pay out a certain percentage of premiums for patient care. By 2014, when the exchanges open, insurers won't be able to deny customers for pre-existing conditions.
3. Everyone will have to have health insurance or pay a fine, a requirement known as the individual mandate. The government intends to cap premiums for people who make below a certain income. For people who buy insurance on the exchanges, a family of four making $88,000 would have a cap of 9.5 percent of their income. Lower incomes would have lower caps. The fine for not having insurance would be a minimum of $695 per person per year, with exemptions for financial hardship and other special cases.
4. Employers will not be required to buy insurance for their employees, but large employers may be subject to fines if they don't provide insurance. But Congress wanted to encourage employers, especially large employers, to offer insurance. So they created a fine for employers with more than 50 workers: If those employees buy insurance on the exchanges and qualify for a low-income credit from the government, then the employer would have to pay a fine. Fines are calculated based on number of employees; for large firms, the fines could be significant.
5. The vast majority of people will not see significant declines in premiums. When President Obama talks about premiums going down, he usually means they won't go up as much as they would otherwise. For the 4-out-of-5 who get their insurance through their employer, the savings would land in the 0 to 3 percent range by 2016, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO. People who buy insurance on their own, but who don't qualify for government subsidies, could actually see their premiums rise by as much as 10 to 13 percent, but that's largely because they'll be getting beefed-up policies that would pay for more basic services, especially preventive care. Low-income people who qualify for new credits to buy insurance would see the biggest drops.
6. The plan might or might not bend the curve on health spending. Critics say there aren't enough provisions to reduce waste or fraud, but Democrats say they're not being given enough credit for new cost-saving pilot programs that could be rapidly expanded. The most recent estimate of the plan, released Thursday by the CBO, said that it would spend $940 billion over 10 years. But new taxes, penalties and cost savings would offset that spending, according to the CBO, so that overall the plan pay for itself, dropping the deficit by slightly $138 billion over 10 years. Obama has said the plan will save more than $1 trillion in the second 10 years, but that estimate, according to the CBO, is highly speculative.
7. The government-run Medicare program will keep paying medical bills for seniors, but it will begin implementing cost controls on health care providers, mostly through penalties and incentives. The legislation would reduce payments for hospital-acquired infections or preventable hospital admissions. For Medicare Advantage, the federal government intends to reduce extra payments, taking away subsidies to private insurance companies. Insurers will likely cut benefits in order to not lose profits. The bill does not address the "doctor's fix," an expected proposal that Congress usually passes to prevent doctor's Medicare payments from severe cuts.
8. Medicaid, a joint federal-state program for the poor, will cover all of the poor, instead of just a few groups the way it currently does. Right now, to qualify for Medicaid, a person has to be poor and also disabled, elderly, pregnant or a child. Under the new plan, all poor adults would qualify.
9. The government won't pay for elective abortions. But under the Senate plan, people will be able to buy insurance that covers abortion on the new health insurance exchanges, as long as the insurance company pays for the services with patient premiums, not taxpayer subsidies. Medicaid has an exemption for cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother.
10. No one is proposing new benefits for illegal immigrants. Some House members had hoped that illegal immigrants would be able to buy insurance with their own money through the new exchanges, but that now appears unlikely.

 

I do have one aspect of this Health care Refore Agenda that I take exception to...

People who don't want to (or can't, perhaps) obtain health care are gonna be...subject to a fine(!??)

Is that not more than a bit harsh and extreme?

Nevertheless, the greater part of this does nothing but good, insofar as a square deal for the underpriveledged.















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You only get fined if you make more than $100,000 / year.

 

Thank GAWD! Pick on the fuckin' rich assholes for *once*!

Tack Sa Mycket.

















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