Obama's appeal as health bill wins vote

Published on Saturday 7 November 2009 21:42

PRESIDENT Barack Obama made a last-minute personal appeal to Democrats to pass landmark health care legislation as a bill to expand coverage to millions of uninsured Americans survived a test vote in the House of Representatives last night.

House passage of the bill is crucial if Obama is to accomplish his top domestic priority and fulfil the biggest promise of his campaign last year. But the legislation still faces multiple hurdles and a Senate vote on it might not occur until next year.

Emerging from a closed-door meeting with the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted approval of the bill later in the day, adding, "We will pass health care reform."

"He came here to say, 'This is what we said we would do in the campaign. Let's do it,"' Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said after the meeting.

The president later issued a public appeal from the White House Rose Garden.

"What's in our grasp right now is a chance to prevent a future where every day, 14,000 Americans continue to lose their health insurance, and every year, 18,000 Americans die because they don't have it," Obama said.

Not long after the president left the Capitol, the legislation cleared its first big hurdle on the House floor, as lawmakers voted 242-192 to approve a must-pass procedural measure setting the terms for the debate. Fifteen Democrats joined all 177 Republicans in voting to block the debate.

The bill would cost $1.2 trillion over the next decade. It would provide health coverage to tens of millions of Americans who do not have it now, require most employers to offer it to their workers and prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage based on a person's medical history.

"The status quo is unaffordable and unsustainable. Health care reform benefits all of us," Rep. Allyson Schwartz told the House.

Republicans were united in their opposition to the bill which would impact one-sixth of the US economy.