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US President Barack Obama’s
historic drive to extend health insurance to nearly all Americans stood Sunday on the cusp of passage through the House of Representatives after an 11th-hour deal.
After days of hard-fought negotiations, Obama pledged to sign an executive order reaffirming a longstanding US ban on government funding for abortions, winning support for the bill from a group of conservative Democratic holdouts.
“I’ve always supported health care reform,” said the group’s leader, Democratic Representative Bart Stupak, flanked by other anti-abortion lawmakers. “This bill is going to go through.”
The breakthrough made it all but certain that Obama’s Democratic allies had locked down the 216 votes needed to ensure passage of the sweeping legislation over united Republican opposition in a ballot expected late in the day.
“We’re well past 216,” boasted Stupak, who spoke to reporters moments after White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said Obama would decree that “restrictions against the public funding of abortions cannot be circumvented.”
Obama’s plan, a compromise between rival House and Senate versions of the bill passed last year, would bring the world’s richest country closer than ever in its history to guaranteeing health care coverage to all its citizens.
Using a blend of expanded government health programs and subsidies for millions to buy private insurance, the bill would add some 32 million Americans to the ranks of those covered for a total of 95 percent of Americans.
The White House said Obama planned to make a televised statement after the House vote, on which he has staked his effectiveness and political legacy.
Frustrated Republicans, united in opposition to the bill, said they would keep up the fight against the measure, which would usher in the most sweeping overhaul of its kind in four decades.
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Republicans assailed the proposal in often bitter debate on the floor of the House and took turns encouraging hundreds of protestors outside the Capitol, holding up signs that read “Kill The Bill” and loudly chanting that slogan.
Inside, Republican Representative Paul Ryan leveled angry charges that the legislation would crush the free market in the heavy hand of government while raising taxes and creating a bevy of inefficient agencies.
“This bill is a fiscal Frankenstein,” he said. “It’s not too late to get it right, let’s start over, let’s defeat this bill.”
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ltvSource Yahoo / AFP
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