But the much-contested vote became certain only after the House Democratic leadership finalized a last-minute deal with anti-abortion Democrats to vote for the Senate-passed health care bill in exchange for an executive order from Obama affirming no federal funding for abortion.
The call for health care overhaul began as a way to help the uninsured, but it gained strength when middle-class families without health insurance flooded Congress with their complaints about health care providers which included soaring premiums and cancellations when they became ill. Democrats hailed the votes as a historic advance in the century-long battle to reform the nation’s health care system.
But never in modern memory has a major piece of legislation passed without a single Republican vote. In the 219-212 vote, 34 Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the bill. The bill now goes to the Senate for action as soon as this week in what will be the final steps in the bitter legislative fight that stressed the nation’s deep partisan and ideological divisions.
President Barack Obama’s yearlong push for this legislation became the centerpiece of his agenda and a test of his political power, and it now could potentially endanger his reelection and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.
Republicans said they would use bill to hammer Democrats in this year’s Congressional elections and it certainly has set off a bitter midterm Congressional election campaign, with Republicans promising an effort to repeal the legislation, challenge its constitutionality or block its provision in all the states.
They insist the plan will burden the nation with exorbitant debt, leave the states with expensive new obligations, weaken Medicare and give the government too large a role in the health care system.
But Democrats said Americans would embrace the bill once they saw its benefits. The government’s budget office estimates that the bill would provide coverage to 32 million uninsured people, but still leave 23 million uninsured in 2019. One-third of those remaining uninsured would be illegal immigrants. The bill will cost some consumers. Wealthy families will be required to pay additional taxes, and most Americans would be required to have health insurances or face federal penalties if they do not buy it, and it will oblige many employers to offer coverage to employees or pay a penalty.
Over the weekend, demonstrators both for and against the bill came to Washington. And in case, the demonstrations were nasty. “It was a hideous display, capping one of the ugliest and strangest periods of the American legislative process,” noted the Washington Post on Monday.
African American Democrats were called racial epithets and spat on by demonstrators, while a gay lawmaker was taunted with homophobic slurs. Police ringed around Democrats as conservative activists shouted: “You Communists! You Socialists!” You hate America!”
Some Republican lawmakers were even blamed for stirring up the crowd to a mob mentality by coming out on a balcony pumping their fists in the air while one held up a sign that said: “KILL.” Only after a deliberate pause, did colleagues hold up the other “THE” and “BILL” signs.
The gesture caused Republican congressman Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, to ask his colleagues when they returned from the balcony: “Are you inciting a riot?”
But the reaction on Wall Street to the passage of the health care overhaul brought relief for investors on Monday, sending shares of insurers and hospital companies higher after a year of volatile trading on concerns over the burdens from reform.
