Obama’s Heath Care Victory Also a Political Risk

Opposition Republicans plan to fight back against health care legislation and take back congressional seats in November.

26 March 2010

President Obama signs the health care bill at the White House Tuesday

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

Earlier this week, President Obama won a major political victory with congressional passage of his health care reform plan. He and congressional Democrats made history with the reform legislation. Among other things, it will extend health insurance coverage to thirty-two million Americans now without it.

Mister Obama had made health care his top goal after his election in two thousand eight. The president and his Democratic allies in Congress finally won the battle after more than a year.

BARACK OBAMA: “We did not avoid our responsibility, we embraced it. We did not fear our future, we shaped it.”

How big a win this was for President Obama? Many political experts see passage of the health care reform bill as historic. Ross Baker is at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

ROSS BAKER:" This is something, after all, that first came to the attention of the American public one hundred years ago when a national health insurance program was proposed by President Theodore Roosevelt, and successive presidents, mostly Democrats but not all, have favored it."