One day after heading to the Capitol to urge House members to pass the Democrats’ health care reform bill, President Obama appeared in the Rose Garden Sunday afternoon to congratulate members on the bill’s narrow passage Saturday night and to express confidence that a final bill would soon become law.
Obama called the 220-215 vote “historic,” noting that it has been decades since either chamber of Congress passed a comprehensive health reform bill on the scale of the Democratic proposal.
“Given the heated and often misleading rhetoric surrounding this legislation, I know that this was a courageous vote for many members of Congress, and I’m grateful to them and for the rest of their colleagues for taking us this far,” he said. “But more importantly, so are the millions of Americans whose lives will change when we achieve insurance reform . . . Their lives are what’s at stake in this debate, and moments like this are why they sent us here — to finally meet the challenges that Washington has put off for decades; to make their lives better and this nation stronger; to move America forward.”
Obama did not mention any of the specific hurdles that still remain for reform — among them, resolving the differences between how the House and Senate plan to pay for universal coverage and how they plan to craft a government-run insurance option, and assuaging the raw feelings that emerged Saturday night over the insertion of anti-abortion language into the House bill. Instead, he spoke as if it was just a matter of time before he would be signing a final bill.
“Now it falls on the United States Senate to take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people,” he said. “And I’m absolutely confident that they will. I’m equally convinced that on the day that we gather here at the White House and I sign comprehensive health insurance reform legislation into law, they’ll be able to join their House colleagues and say that this was their finest moment in public service — the moment we delivered change we promised to the American people and did something to leave this country stronger than we found it.”
He concluded his brief appearance by also congratulating Iraqi lawmakers for approving a new election law that paves the way for national elections in a few months, calling it “an important milestone as the Iraqi people continue to take responsibility for their future.”
“Their flexibility and commitment to their country sends an important signal to the world about Iraq’s democracy and national unity,” he said. “Iraq has known many challenges, and in the past several weeks we’ve seen that there are still those who would kill innocent men, women and children to deny the Iraqi people the future they deserve. Today’s step forward is another reminder that these enemies of the Iraqi people will fail.”
See more here.
