PkrBum wrote:Public input... what a novel concept. I hope the process is messy... and contentious... and open.
A radical approach considering how obamacaid was shoved down our throat... I know.
It is well past time that the right wing talking point of "Obamacare" being crammed down our throats be given up in favor of reality. It took many many months, countless hearings and meetings to pass this bill.Fall 2008: Presidential candidate Barack Obama says, “On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes — government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. … I believe both of these extremes are wrong.” Obama wins the presidency a week later.
March 2009: President Obama convenes a “health summit” with doctors, insurers, drug companies, consumers advocates and lawmakers. “The status quo is the one option that is not on the table,” the new president says. He appoints Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who has a history of clashes with the insurance industry, to run the federal Health and Human Services agency. She also heads the White House Office for Health Reform.
Nancy Pelosi speaker of HouseJuly 2009: House Democrats unveil their 1,000-page plan for overhauling the health care system. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (pictured), an ally of Obama’s, says: “When I take this bill to the floor, it will win. This will happen.” House committees begin crunching the details and voting on provisions.
August 2009: Lawmakers go home to find walls of worry erected over “Obamacare.” One lawmaker says citizens are “shell-shocked” over the many changes in the first eight months of Obama’s administration.
Nov. 7, 2009: The House approves its version of health care reform in a 220-215 vote. One Republican votes for the bill. Passage was far from certain — a last-minute compromise limiting federal funding for abortion services cleared the way.
Dec. 24, 2009: The Senate approves its version of the health care overhaul in a 60-39 party-line vote. Democrats have to break a GOP filibuster. The bill’s passage confirms majority agreement in both chambers of Congress.
January 2010: Obama, in his first State of the Union address, says the health overhaul will “protect every American from the worst practices of the insurance industry.” … In a major upset, Massachusetts state Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican, wins the special election to finish the remaining term of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy. It gives the GOP a key vote and is seen as a major rebuff to Obama. Brown works actively against Obamacare. Meanwhile, the GOP-controlled House votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but the effort fails in the Senate.
February 2010: Anthem Blue Cross of California informs many members they’ll be paying a 39 percent increase in premiums. The move, under investigation by the White House and in Congress, galvanizes Democrats on the health care issue. Obama calls a bipartisan health care meeting for leaders of both parties on Feb. 25. He later says “the Republican and Democratic approaches to health care have more in common than most people think.”
March 2010: President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi keep up pressure on Democrat lawmakers to ensure passage of the health care act. “We are this close to the summit of the mountain,” Obama tells staffers. A New York Times analysis calls it “the most riveting cliffhanger of the Obama presidency so far.”
March 21, 2010: The Senate’s version of the health care plan is OK’d by the House in a 219-212 vote. All Republicans voted against it. “The American people are angry,” House Republican leader John Boehner said. “This body moves forward against their will.”
obama signature health care actMarch 23, 2010: President Obama signs the Affordable Care Act into law. “We did not fear our future, we shaped it,” he says.
http://affordablehealthca.com/timeline-obamacare/
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