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March 23, 2010
History, made
Editorial
News and Observer
President Barack Obama countered naysayers within his own party along with steadfast Republican critics as he continued over many months to push dramatic changes in the way America's health care system works - or doesn't. It was, the president made clear, a defining issue for the time.
Sunday night, in a legislative step reminiscent of the establishment of Medicare and Social Security, perhaps even with reminders of Franklin D. Roosevelt's program to help the nation climb from the Great Depression, health care in America changed for the better with a hard-fought victory in the U.S. House.
Called weak, urged by some in his own party to fight another day, facing massive opposition organized by insurance companies, standing up to Republicans forecasting catastrophe as inevitable were reform to pass, Obama put some steel in his congressional allies, forged reasonable compromises and stood by the findings of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that reform would reduce the federal deficit.
And speaking of steel, North Carolina Democratic Reps. David Price of Chapel Hill, Bob Etheridge of Lillington, Brad Miller of Raleigh, Mel Watt of Charlotte and G.K. Butterfield of Wilson stood up and stood against what Etheridge properly called a "campaign of misinformation and distortion and fear" by opponents.
The Senate has to take a tidying-up vote to reconcile House legislation with its own. But reform now becomes law. Some 32 million uninsured Americans will gradually be able to get insurance coverage. Insurance companies, beginning immediately with children and by 2014 including adults, no longer will be able to deny coverage to those with pre-existing medical conditions. State-based purchasing pools, called exchanges, will start in 2014 to help small business get coverage and to help those who lose their jobs or start businesses of their own get insurance.
The changes will not create a government-run health system, as exists in many other industrialized nations. But they will make coverage available and affordable to millions of people, and there could be important economic benefits from the move to guarantee health insurance access. Those who have wanted to change jobs or start their own businesses, possibly creating jobs, might be willing to take that chance if they can be assured they can obtain affordable health care for themselves and their families.
Insurers should benefit as well. With more people covered, and with a mandate in the law that they must be, insurance companies should not suffer on the bottom line from carrying people who do indeed have illnesses.
The changes will not create a perfect health care system. But too many people had fallen through holes in the current system, or knew people who had. Families were spending large percentages of their income on care. The "glitches" were hurting people and just didn't make sense, as Barack Obama saw more than two years ago. On Sunday, President Obama showed that something really could be done to fix it.
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