President signs historic health reform measure into law

At a White House ceremony this morning, President Barack Obama signed into law the Senate version of health insurance reform.

The Associated Press: The president "signed a historic $938 billion health care overhaul that guarantees coverage for 32 million uninsured Americans and will touch nearly every citizen's life, presiding over the biggest shift in U.S. domestic policy since the 1960s and capping a divisive, yearlong debate that could define the November elections." Obama was joined at the bill signing ceremony by House and Senate Democrats as well as "lesser-known people whose health care struggles have touched the president" (Superville, 3/23).

USA Today: "A jubilant President Obama signed the health care bill into law today, calling its massive expansion of insurance coverage 'reforms that generations of Americans have fought for and marched for and hungered to see'" (Jackson, 3/23).

Los Angeles Times: "Obama, who sought passage of this legislation for more than a year, portrayed it as an achievement on an historic par with the passage of Social Security after the Great Depression and Medicare in the 1960s" (Silva, 3/23).

The New York Times: "Despite the president's signature, the legislative work on the measure is not over, nor is the intense partisan fight over it. Republicans are already vowing to repeal the bill. And the legislative battle will flare anew in the Senate on Tuesday, where lawmakers are set to take up a package of changes to the measure under the parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation" (Stolberg, 3/23).

The Wall Street Journal: Guests at today's signing ceremony for the health overhaul bill include Vicki Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who had pushed for years to revamp the nation's health system to provide coverage for the uninsured (Carnevale, 3/23).