A trip to Asia must wait as US President Barack Obama’s sweeping US$940 billion US healthcare reform plan heads for a long-awaited vote this weekend.
As Obama played host to a procession of Democrats still wavering over the healthcare program, the Democrats received one last boost: a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report that said healthcare reform would trim federal deficits by an estimated US$138 billion over the next decade.
Obama then postponed his Asia trip for a second time to ensure he was in Washington for the final push. He assured the people of Indonesia that he is still looking forward to visiting his former home once the healthcare debate is resolved. In an interview that aired yesterday on RCTI, Indonesia’s largest commercial television network, Obama said it made sense to wait until June so that he and his family are not rushed when they visit Indonesia, where he lived for four years as a child.
Obama has put his presidency on the line to gain passage of his top domestic priority, in the face of Republicans who say the plan is a government-takeover of healthcare that will lead to higher deficits and taxes. One Republican has said it could prove to be the president’s Waterloo if the drive collapses.
The healthcare reform program would affect nearly every American and remake one-sixth of the US economy. For the first time, Americans would be required to have health insurance.
Democrats set a Sunday showdown in the House, and while Pelosi and others expressed confidence about the outcome, Obama’s decision to delay the Asia trip was a confession that the votes were not yet secured.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the total 10-year cost of expanding coverage at US$940 billion. The analysts said the legislation would reduce the federal deficit by US$138 billion over its first 10 years, and continue to drive down the red ink thereafter. Democratic leaders said the deficit would be cut US$1.2 trillion in the second decade — and Obama called it the biggest reduction since the 1990s, when former US president Bill Clinton put the federal budget on a path to surplus.
Beginning in 2014, most Americans would be required to purchase insurance and face penalties if they refused. Millions of families with incomes up to US$88,000 a year would receive government help to defray their costs. Large businesses would face fines if they did not offer good-quality coverage to their workers.
“It will make history and we will make progress by passing this legislation,” said the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as Democrats unveiled final alterations to a bill — 16 tumultuous months in the making — meant to expand healthcare to 32 million uninsured Americans and bar the insurance industry from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.
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