MAKE OR break. Do or die. Fight to the finish. US commentators yesterday portrayed the final week of President Barack Obama’s push to achieve healthcare reform in stark terms.
Two pieces of legislation – the 10-year, $875 billion (€640 billion) Bill that passed the Senate on December 24th and a smaller “reconciliation” or “sidecar” Bill that would make changes demanded by the House – are to be voted on in the House by the end of the week. The Senate would then have to approve the adjustments by a simple majority of 51 votes.
If the reform does not pass, "it will be a calamitous failure for his presidency and for him personally, dwarfing the potholes he has hit during his first bumpy year in office", wrote Mark Halperin of Timemagazine.
James Clyburn, the Democrat whip, said that the party does not yet have the 216 of 431 votes required to pass the legislation. The only Republican who voted for a House version last November now says he will vote No.
But Mr Obama’s top adviser struck an optimistic note. “I am absolutely confident that we are going to be successful,” David Axelrod said on NBC.
The House minority leader John Boehner promised to do “everything we can to make it difficult for them, if not impossible”.
Mr Obama makes daily phone calls to Democratic hold-outs who oppose the Bill because they want more severe restrictions on abortion, or because they believe it costs too much.
His strongest argument is that failure endangers all their chances of re-election next November.
Mr Obama has postponed his departure for Asia from March 18th until March 21st because of the healthcare vote.
Yesterday he took the battle to Strongsville, Ohio, centring his remarks on Natoma Canfield, a local self-employed woman who wrote to him last month, and whose letter he read to a recent meeting of medical insurance executives, to shame them.
Ms Canfield had recovered from cancer 16 years ago, but her insurance company kept raising her premiums. Last year, she spent $6,000 on insurance premiums and $4,000 on “co-payments”. Her insurance company, which spent only $900 on her care, nonetheless raised her premiums by 40 per cent. Ms Canfield dropped her insurance and wrote to Mr Obama.
She was supposed to introduce the President yesterday in Ohio. But on Saturday, Ms Canfield collapsed and was diagnosed with leukaemia. She has begun chemotherapy, which she does not know how to pay for, and it fell to her sister to introduce Mr Obama.
“I’m here because of Natoma,” Mr Obama said. “I’m here because of countless others who have been forced to face the hardest and most terrifying challenges in their lives with the added burden of medical bills they cannot pay.”
The US president gives the impression he’s on a personal crusade to ensure that others do not suffer as his own mother did. He recounted again yesterday how she spent the last six months of her life battling insurance companies on the phone from her hospital bed. His plan would insure an additional 31 million Americans.
