Biden was right: it was a big clamour deal

Analysis: Giles Whittell, Washington & , : {}

The Vice President was right and the White House press secretary was right that he was right. It was a big expletive deal. But there has been no more eloquent confirmation of the scale of the likely impact of the health insurance reform act of 2010 than Republicans desire to prevent it passing.They filed their first lawsuits contesting its constitutionality within seven minutes of the blotter being applied to the presidential signature.

Some in the anti-reform camp represent the genuine concerns of small and medium-sized business owners who will soon be required to offer health insurance to their employees if they have more than 50 of them, or face a $2,000 fine per employee per year.

Some are genuinely more troubled by the governments decision to force individuals to buy insurance - or accept subsidies if they cannot afford it - than by appearing to oppose an extension of basic cover to 95 per cent of the population for the first time in American history. But most of the opponents of these reforms oppose them because of politics.

Had Mr Obama balked and shelved this effort, or pursued only a scaled-down version of it, he would have been the President who promised the earth but failed to deliver: the prince of the teleprompter out of his depth in national government.

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His party would have been in deep trouble at the mid-terms in November, and he would have been acutely vulnerable in 2012.

He is now the President who can not only govern but who delivered what none of his predecessors could. At a stroke, he has given his supporters a record to run on, leaving their opponents to object to the process. Voters may tire of the conservative argument that near-universal healthcare is a bad thing because it was achieved through a Senate process called reconciliation. The signs are that the public is already moving on.

According to a Gallup poll yesterday 49 per cent of Americans think the bill is a good thing, against 40 per cent who dont. Mr Obamas opponents will be hard-put to continue claiming, as they have without pause for the past 14 months, that the American people reject this reform.

They said it was going to be Armageddon, he said of the House Republican leadership. Well, three months from now, six months from now we can check it out. Well see. Even by his own standards, he seemed confident.