Passage of health care reform
Health care reform, popular with Americans during the election, became less so as legislators presented the proposed changes to their constituents in town hall meetings in summer 2009 that sometimes erupted into shouting matches between those with opposing viewpoints. It was at this time that the populist Tea Party movement, comprising libertarian-minded conservatives, emerged in opposition to the Democratic health care proposals but more generally in opposition to what they saw as excessive taxes and government involvement in the private sector. Republicans across the board complained that Democratic proposals constituted a “government takeover” of health care that would prove too costly and mortgage the future of generations to come. Their opposition to the Democratic plans was virtually lockstep.
In many respects the president left the initiative for health care reform in the hands of congressional leaders. House Democrats responded in November 2009 by passing a bill that called for sweeping reform, including the creation of a “public option,” a lower-cost government-run program that would act as competition for private insurance companies. The Senate was more deliberate in its consideration. Obama seemed to let conservative Democrat Sen. Max Baucus take the lead in that body at the head of the “Group of Six,” comprising three Republican and three Democratic senators. The resulting bill that was passed by the Senate—holding the allegiance of all 58 Democrats plus independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, it barely survived a filibuster attempt by Republicans—proved to provide far fewer changes than its House counterpart, most notably leaving out the public option. Before a compromise could be reached on the two bills, the triumph of Republican Scott Brown in a special election for the seat formerly held by Sen. Ted Kennedy destroyed the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority. Many Democrats believed this meant that they would have to start over, as Republicans had been demanding.
Obama and other Democratic leaders, especially Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, thought otherwise and continued to push for passage. Obama went on the offensive, skillfully moderating a nationally telecast summit of Republicans and Democrats at which the pros and cons of the Democratic proposals were debated. He also took his case outside the Beltway, in speech after speech, emphasizing the message that health care was a right and not a privilege and increasingly sharpening his criticism of the insurance industry. In March 2010, in an attempt to win the support of Democrats in the House who opposed the legislation because they felt it would weaken limitations on abortion funding, Obama promised to sign an executive order guaranteeing that it would not. With that crucial group on board, Pelosi confidently brought the Senate bill to the House floor for a special vote on Sunday night March 21. The bill passed 219–212 (34 Democrats and all the Republicans voted against it) and was followed by passage of a second bill that proposed “fixes” for the Senate bill. Democrats planned to employ the relatively infrequently used procedure known as reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority for passage, to get these fixes through the Senate. Speaking on television shortly after the House vote, Obama told the country, “This is what change looks like.”
On March 23 Obama signed the bill into law. Senate Republican efforts to force another House vote on the bill of proposed fixes included the introduction of more than 40 amendments that were voted down along party lines. Ultimately, on March 25, the Senate voted 56–43 to pass the bill, which, because of procedural violations in some of its language, had to be returned to the House, where it passed again by a vote of 220–207. No Republicans in either house voted for the bill.
The legislation would, once all its elements had taken effect over the next four years, prohibit denial of coverage on the basis of preexisting conditions and extend health care to some 30 million previously uninsured Americans. The bill made the attainment of health care insurance mandatory for all citizens, but it also called for a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans that would largely bankroll subsidies for premium payments for families earning less than $88,000 per year. Moreover, the bill promised a tax credit to small businesses that provide coverage for their employees. In some corners the bill was considered an unconstitutional “government takeover” of an industry representing one-sixth of the economy, and in others it was hailed as legislation as monumental as that which had come out of the civil rights movement.
Economic challenges
Responding to the economic crisis that had emerged in 2008 and prompted a rescue of the financial industry with up to $700 billion in government funds (see Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008), Obama—aided by large Democratic majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives—pushed through Congress a $787 billion stimulus package. By the third quarter of 2009 the plan had succeeded in reversing the dramatic decline in GDP, resulting in 2.2 percent positive growth on a per annum basis. Unemployment, however, had also risen, from 7.2 percent when Obama entered office to about 10 percent. And Republicans complained that the stimulus package cost too much, having swelled the federal deficit to $1.42 trillion. Still, it appeared that the U.S. economy was recovering, albeit slowly. The president could proudly point to the dramatic turnaround of General Motors: in June 2009 GM had lapsed into bankruptcy, necessitating a $60 billion government rescue and takeover of about three-fifths of its stock, but by May 2010 the auto manufacturer, employing a new business plan, had shown its first profit in three years. Obama looked forward to “Recovery Summer,” anticipating the payoff of the massive federal investment in infrastructure-improvement programs aimed at creating jobs and stimulating the economy. But as the summer of 2010 progressed, the prospects for the economy seemed to dim as unemployment stagnated (partly because of the demise of temporary jobs tied to the decennial census). Some economists feared that a second recessionary trough was approaching, while others argued that the stimulus package had been insufficient.
Obama was able to claim another major legislative victory, however, in July, when Congress passed (60–39 in the Senate and 237–192 in the House) the most sweeping financial regulation since the New Deal. Among other statutes, the bill established a financial consumer-protection bureau within the Federal Reserve, empowered the government to take over and shut down large troubled financial firms, created a council of federal regulators to monitor the financial system, and subjected derivatives—the complex financial instruments that were partly responsible for the financial crisis—to government oversight.
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
The spring and summer of 2010 would be remembered more, though, for a massive oil spill that dragged on for months in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest marine oil spill in history (see Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010). The disaster began with an explosion and fire that killed 11 workers and led to the collapse and sinking on April 22 of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform some 40 miles (60 km) off the coast of Louisiana. The resulting oil spill endangered marine life, fouled beaches, and brought a halt to fishing in a huge area. The Obama administration’s efforts to address the spill were criticized by some as ineffectual, as most Americans felt helpless in the face of the largely futile ongoing efforts by BP, the well’s owner, to staunch the spill. Ironically, in a policy shift just weeks before the spill, the president had proposed ending a long-standing ban on offshore oil exploration from northern Delaware to central Florida as well as in some other locations. In the spill’s wake, however, the Interior Department instituted a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling that included halting operations at more than 30 existing exploratory wells. Before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was finally contained and the well capped in July 2010, it was estimated that some 4.9 million barrels of oil had been released into the water.
In happier news for the president, August 2010 marked the Senate confirmation of his second Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan. Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor had been confirmed in July 2009.