US healthcare reform
We discuss how Barack Obama will sell the historic bill after he has signed it into law.
It seems like the debate on the US healthcare reform is far from over – as Congess is forced to vote again on the bill.
After a year-long struggle, Barack Obama, the US president, managed to gather enough support for it in the House just earlier this week.
On Tuesday, he signed the historic $938bn health overhaul that gurantees coverage for 32 million uninsured US citizens.
While the reforms were signed into law, its amendments are still to be finalised. And now Republicans, who strongly oppose the reforms, are using technality to delay the bill.
Meanwhile, some democrats who supported the bill are having a hard time. They have been subjected to vandalism and death threats. The FBI has been called in to investigate.
Just how would Barack Obama sell the bill after he has signed it into law? And what impact, if at all, would it have on Obama’s presidency as a whole and the mid-tern Congress election coming up?
Inside Story, with presenter Imran Garda, discusses with guests Phil Kerpen, the vice-president of Americans for Prosperity, Oliver Fein, the president of Physicians for a National Health Programme and also a professor of clinical public health at Cornell University, and Victor Rodwin, a professor of health policy and management at New York University.
This episode of Inside Story airs from Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1730GMT and 2230GMT, with repeats on Friday at 0430GMT and 1030GMT.