Obama signs health care bill, celebrates historic overhaul with supporters
By Darlene Superville, APTuesday, March 23, 2010
Obama signs $938 billion health overhaul
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has signed the $938 billion health care overhaul that guarantees coverage for 32 million uninsured Americans and represents the biggest accomplishment of his presidency.
The new law will be the main issue in this fall’s midterm elections. Obama signed the bill at an elaborate ceremony Tuesday in the East Room of the White House, to be followed by an even larger celebration at an Interior Department auditorium.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A beaming President Barack Obama is celebrating passage of landmark health care legislation. He said it sets in motion “desperately needed reforms” sought by generations of Americans.
Congressional backers crowded into the East Room of the White House along with several ordinary citizens bringing stories of health care hardships, to witness the historic bill-signing. Obama waited well over a year for the moment, and he will follow it up Thursday with a trip to Iowa to talk it up.
With Victoria Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy in the audience, Obama took note of the long battle to bring the health overhaul measure to his desk.
Participants chanted “Fired up, ready to go,” as Obama appeared, smiling broadly.
Tags: Barack Obama, Edward Kennedy, Health Care Overhaul, Health Care Reform, North America, Political Issues, United States, Washington
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March 23, 2010: 7:19 pm
THIS MOMENTOUS DAY! Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example. Each smallest act of kindness - even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile - reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will. All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined - those dead, those living, those generations yet to come - that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands. Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength - the very survival - of the human tapestry. Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in THIS MOMENTOUS DAY! Excerpt from Dean Koontz’s book, “From the Corner of His Eye”. It embodies the idea of how the smallest of acts can have such a profound effect on each of our lives. |
Preston