Washington: President Barack Obama on Friday assured that 2010 would be a year of remarkable progress for the American people and the country is slowly emerging out of the crisis and moving forward again.
"I want to make a guarantee that 2010 will not be a boring year. Let me also say this -- 2010 will mark a year of remarkable progress for the American people," Obama said in his address to the House Democratic Caucus Retreat at the Capitol Hill.
Obama said due to the initiatives taken by his administration and the legislative actions by the Congress in the last one year, the United States is slowly emerging out of the crisis.
"In one of America`s darkest hours, you answered the call," he said, adding that America is moving forward again. At the same time he said this is still a tough environment for a huge number of Americans. This is a tough time for this country.
"There are seven million Americans out there who have lost their jobs over the past two years and they still need our help. What they can expect from this administration, and I know what they can expect from you, is that we are going to have a sustained and relentless focus over the next several months on accelerating the pace of job creation, because that`s priority number one," he said.
Obama said: "Today we are on the doorstep of accomplishing something that Washington has been talking about since Teddy Roosevelt was president, and that is reforming health care and health insurance here in America."
Urging Congressmen to support the health care bill, he said: "Once we sign this bill into law, the American people will suddenly learn that this bill does things they like and doesn`t do things that people have been trying to say it does.”
“Their worst fears will prove groundless, and the American people`s hope for a fair shake from their insurance companies for quality, affordable health care they need will finally be realised."
This year alone, he argued, this reform will ban some of the worst practices of the insurance industry forever. "They`ll no longer be allowed to impose restrictive annual limits on the amount of coverage that you receive, lifetime limits on the amounts of benefits received. They`ll be required to offer free preventive care, like checkups and routine tests and mammograms at no cost.”
"Patients will have rights. They will get what they pay for. And that`s just the beginning," he said. Talking a dig at the opposition he said: "If Republicans want to campaign against what we`ve done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have," he said.
If their best idea is to return to the bad policies and the bad ideas of yesterday, they are going to lose that argument, he said.
PTI
