Obama Makes Health Care Reform Official

After months of partisan bickering, “Obamacare” paranoia and tea-party whimsy, President Obama made the health care reform bill law on Tuesday, signing it with studied deliberation as Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others from among Fox News’ most beloved federal officials looked on. –KA

The New York Times:

Mr. Obama affixed his curlicue signature, almost letter by letter, to the measure, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, surrounded by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and a raft of other lawmakers who spent the past year on a legislative roller-coaster ride trying to pass it. Aides said he would pass out the 20 pens he used as mementoes.

The ceremony included two special guests: Vicki Kennedy, the widow of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who had been a driving force for health care legislation before his death last year, and Connie Anderson, the sister of Natoma Canfield, the Ohio cancer survivor whose struggle to pay skyrocketing health insurance premiums became a touchstone of Mr. Obama’s campaign to overhaul the system.

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