Liveblogging Obama's health speech
This is my liveblog of Scroll down to the bottom and read up to follow the speech as it happened...
2107: He concludes by saying: "We can do great things, and... here and now we will meet history's test... that is our calling, that is our character." He's down on the floor now, shaking hands, a brief kiss for Hillary Clinton. He looks more serious now than when he came in. I expect he'll be waiting for those overnight private polls. It seemed to go down pretty well in the chamber, but it's how Americans receive it over the next few hours and days that really counts.
2103: may like this: "We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it." I'm sure the echo of Marx is an accident...
2102: We're near the end now - and this it, the president's big thought: when any government is subject to scorn, when efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American, when timidity passes for wisdom, we lose something essential about ourselves.
2058: The president prays in aid an absent friend - Teddy Kennedy. He says the late senator's passion for healthcare was not born out of rigid ideology, but from his experience of having two children stricken with cancer. And he says Mr Kennedy's large-heartedness was "not Republican or Democrat", but "part of the American character". The president includes in the American character "an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver."
2054: Big grin from the president and a long period of clapping when he adopts the Republicans' idea for reforming medical malpractice laws. He's going to go ahead with a Bush initiative to test the idea in individual states.
2051: Reassurance aimed at America's seniors about scary stories and tall tales. Not a dollar of Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan, he says. But the system is full of waste and abuse and reducing this will - he claims - pay for most of the plan. That's definitely a promise that needs more scrutiny. For two decades, I've watched politicians promise their plan can be paid for by eliminating waste - it never really seems to happen.
2046: "I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can't find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice." So is the public option a must, or a possibility? I think this is what we used to call in the Northern Ireland peace talks "constructive ambiguity".
2045: Hurrahs and another very brief standing ovation, as he mentions the P-word - a public option. But a message to his "progressive friends": the public option would only be a means to an end to prevent insurance company abuses. "We should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal." Translation: I'd like it, but we'll have to drop it. His progressive friends remain seated.
2043: The mood changes slightly when he says that it is false to claim that illegal immigrants would be covered under his plan. Someone shouts out, "That's a lie." There are boos - whether at the president or the shouter, I can't tell.
2040: Now a bit of reassurance and some attack - he has a go at what he calls "bogus claims" about bureaucrats who'd kill off senior citizens. Sarah Palin repeated this in a newspaper article this morning. He calls the claim "cynical and irresponsible - a lie plain and simple."
2036: A thumbs-up from a beaming John McCain, who rises to his feet as the president promises to adopt his idea for low-cost coverage for americans who can't get insurance because of pre-existing medical conditions. But what of those who want to take the risk and go without coverage? It's irresponsible behaviour he says, which costs everyone else. Under his plan, everybody would have to be insured, just as with car insurance.
2034: More promises: "What this plan will do is make the insurance you have work better for you" - perhaps the most important part of the speech. The president pledges that as soon he signs the bill it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny coverage because of a pre-existing condition. It will be against the law to drop people when they get sick. They won't be able to put an "arbitrary" cap on the cost of coverage for a year or a lifetime. There will be a limit on how much patients will be expected to pay themselves. And companies will have to pay for routine check-ups, for breast cancer and the like...
2032: Here's the guts of it. He promises that no-one who has health insurance will lose it: "Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have." And for those who don't have insurance or those who lose or change their job, a promise that they will get coverage. How? I suspect we're about to find out.
2028: The soundbite of the evening I guess: "The time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action." And just before, he neatly blames confusion over his plans on scare tactics and those who want to score short-term political points. We're getting to the meat in a minute...
2024: This is a pitch for the middle ground. He's stressing the people who are one accident or one illness away form bankruptcy, but are not on welfare - middle class Americans. He gives the example of a woman whose insurance company cancelled her policy when she got breast cancer, because she'd forgotten to declare she once had acne. "That is heartbreaking, it is wrong, and no-one should be treated that way in the United States of America." Another standing ovation.
2019: The president moves through the throng smiling broadly, clapping shoulders and giving clasping, lingering handshakes. His wife, in a special first lady's box, looks nervous, far more nervous than him, but he is already on stage.
2015: The chamber is filled with the dark suits of the nation's senior politicians, brightened by occasional splashes of red, blue, orange and yellow from the jackets of female politicians.
I’m Mark Mardell, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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