|
|
 |
You are > Home > Obama is in a healthy position
|
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Obama is in a healthy position
BARACK Obama got over the first major hurdle of his presidency last week with the passing of the Healthcare Bill.
All year long the battle raged to pass the legislation and it got through in the end with the historic vote of 219-212 in the US House of Representatives – just three votes more than the necessary 216 required.
34 of the president’s own party, the Democrats, voted with the Republicans so you can see from those figures what a close call it was.
The healthcare triumph is a much needed boost for President Obama. The best example I have seen on how great this victory was for the main man in the US was in an article by Robert Dallek in The Times (23 March,). Robert Dallek was one of nine historians invited to the White House for dinner to discuss the challenge facing the passing of the Bill. Here is an extract from his piece:
"After the president and Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, expressed concerns about the fight ahead, I asked if they knew about the healthcare advocate who had died and gone to Heaven. St Peter said to him: "You’ve led an exemplary life, you are entitled to an audience with the Lord".
The Lord asked: "Do you have any questions?"
"Yes" the man replied. "Will we ever see national health insurance in the United States? We thought we had a chance with Theodore Roosevelt, with FDR, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Will it ever happen?"
"The Lord thought for a moment and said: "Yes, but not in my lifetime."
Dallek added: "President Obama and Mr Emanuel laughed, but they were less than amused. They knew that they had a difficult if not insurmountable challenger to overcome.
"Does Mr Obama’s healthcare reform law represent as great a change in America’s social arrangements as social security and medicare? Without question. As is evident from the fierce opposition the measure provoked – socialism, communism, fascism, Nazism were some of the descriptions levelled by his opponents – the law will eventually have a great impact on the lives of 32 million citizens and could open the way to something even more comprehensive once the current legislation establishes itself as a popular part of the social safety net."
And here are some of the credentials of the man who wrote this. Robert Dallek is the author of books on FDR, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. His new book, The Lost Peace: Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, 19451953, will be published in October.
President Obama has certainly delivered the goods at this stage. For the first time in modern memory has a major piece of US legislation been passed without a single Republican vote – and that must be quite an achievement.
So it looks like President Obama’s tenure in the White House is going to continue and a second term looks to be on the cards right now.
Main News Page |
Previous Page
|
|
|
|
