Washington - a triumph for U.S. President Barack Obama: Just in time for the end of his first year in the White House adopted the Senate's health care reform with a clear majority.
Thus, the most important domestic projects of his term of office has progressed a long way. However, another serious negotiations are imminent, because that piece of legislation in both chambers of parliament must still second in one lap. But Obama hopes to sign the law in late January.
Even before the vote Obamna said he was "very satisfied", but also conceded that "serious negotiations have to be taken." It constitutes itself "the most comprehensive health care reform that we have ever seen," he told the PBS.
The most important point is over 2000 pages long, the Senate draft that about 31 million previously uninsured Americans continue to obtain insurance. Excluded would then only illegal immigrants. Those who can not afford insurance, receive aid. In addition, health insurance companies are now permitted to refuse any payment, because the disease has existed before the contract begins.
60 Democratic senators voted for the reform in a special meeting on Thursday, 39 Republicans voted against it. The vote on Christmas Eve, followed a lengthy, bitter dispute, intervened in the health industry and the private health insurance companies with millions. Republicans had repeatedly tried to block the adoption by Dauerreden (filibuster) to. Obama delayed his Christmas leave to intervene personally in an emergency at the last minute to.
The modernization of the health system - is what the world is extremely expensive - was the central domestic policy Obama's campaign promises. He repeatedly stressed, go there also to make the system more cost-effective long term.
The Democrats are talking about a historic breakthrough. "It's about the millions of Americans who will be helped by this law," said the Democratic parliamentary leader in the Senate, Harry Reid. Such a reform would have already unsuccessfully requested many presidents. Reid accidentally voted for the final vote is no, then it should still correct.
Republicans warned against the high cost of 871 billion U.S. dollars within ten years would push the national debt further into the air. "The law makes a bad situation even worse," criticized the Republican Senator Charles Grassley. In addition, the reform of the state increases the impact on people's everyday lives.
