Health Care Reform is Now Law

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

With the stroke of President Obama's pen, his health care overhaul — the most sweeping social legislation enacted in decades — became law on Tuesday.

President Obama affixed his signature to the measure, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, surrounded by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and a raft of other lawmakers who spent the past year on a legislative roller-coaster ride trying to pass it. Aides said he would pass out the 20 pens he used as mementoes. Obama Signs Landmark Health Care Bill – NYTimes.com:

The ceremony included two special guests: Vicki Kennedy, the widow of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who had been a driving force for health care legislation before his death last year, and Connie Anderson, the sister of Natoma Canfield, the Ohio cancer survivor whose struggle to pay skyrocketing health insurance premiums became a touchstone of Mr. Obama’s campaign to overhaul the system.

Mr. Kennedy’s son, Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, was also there, carrying a gift for the president: a copy of a bill his father introduced in 1970 to provide national health insurance. On it, the younger Mr. Kennedy had written a personal message to Mr. Obama.

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The landmark bill, passed by the House on Sunday night by a vote of 219-212, will provide coverage to an estimated 30 million people who currently lack it. Its passage assures Mr. Obama a place in history as the American president who succeeded at revamping the nation’s health care system where [many] others, notably Bill Clinton, tried mightily and failed.