US President Barack Obama has succeeded in passing a healthcare reform Bill.

A landmark $940 billion (£625bn) healthcare reform Bill has been passed by the US House of Representatives after a 14-month battle by Democrat President Barack Obama to bring universal access to healthcare.

It was passed by 219 votes to 212 after many hours of debate – just three more than it needed to succeed. A further 34 Democrat members joined all the Republicans in voting against the bill, worried about paying a political price in November’s mid-term elections.

The President’s proposal puts American families and small business owners in control of their own healthcare – and will bring insurance to 32 million Americans that currently do not have any.

It will extend coverage to 95% of the US population, and marks the most significant change to the healthcare system since the launch of Medicare and Medicaid in the Social Security Act of 1965.

The White House plans to launch a campaign this week to persuade sceptical Americans that the reforms offer immediate benefits to them and represent the most significant effort to reduce the federal deficit since the 1990s.

The proposal will provide the largest middle class tax cut for healthcare in history, reducing premium costs for tens of millions of families and small business owners who are priced out of coverage today.  It will establish a new competitive health insurance market giving Americans the same choices of insurance that members of Congress will have.

Insurance providers will face greater scrutiny and be made more accountable in cases of any industry abuse and denial of care – including the act of denying insurance to those with pre-existing conditions.

President Obama said in his speech last night (21 March 2010): “Tonight, after nearly 100 years of talk and frustration, after decades of trying, and a year of sustained effort and debate, the United States Congress finally declared that America’s workers and America’s families and America’s small businesses deserve the security of knowing that here, in this country, neither illness nor accident should endanger the dreams they’ve worked a lifetime to achieve.

“This reform is the right thing to do for our seniors. It makes Medicare stronger and more solvent, extending its life by almost a decade. And it’s the right thing to do for our future. It will reduce our deficit by more than $100 billion over the next decade, and more than $1 trillion in the decade after that.

“So this isn’t radical reform. But it is major reform. This legislation will not fix everything that ails our health care system. But it moves us decisively in the right direction. This is what change looks like.”

On Tuesday, the President is expected to sign the House-approved Senate Bill after which it will be officially enacted into law; however the Republicans say they will seek to repeal the measure, challenge its constitutionality and co-ordinate efforts in state legislatures to block its implementation.

For more information on the new health Bill, click here.