Shortly after President Obama was elected he began a health reform challenge. This reform was to create health care legislation that would cover every American. In March of 2010 the United States Congress, which was controlled by the Democratic majority, managed to pass the health care reform act. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on March 23, 2010. This was seen as a great victory for the Obama Administration.

This new health care law was the most radical and controversial one since the Medicare act of 1965. It was designed to make health care affordable and available to every American. If an individual had cancer in the past, he or she typically could not afford to get health insurance because it was too expensive.

The problem with this legislation is that the majority of Americans do not support the Congress in passing such a law that would inhibit more of their freedom by demanding they must purchase health care insurance, regardless of whether they want to or not. Approximately 50 percent of the American people did not agree with the government being able to impose fines on them for not complying with a law that mandates the purchase of health insurance.

Thirteen states are currently in the process of filing suits against the government on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional. The states that oppose the mandatory health care bill currently include Florida, Virginia, Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Louisiana. These states believe the federal government has overstepped their boundaries by passing such a law. They are planning to have the Supreme Court decide the legality of passing this law.

One of the biggest arguments on the issue of universal health care is that it is not an inalienable right that one is entitled to free health care just because one is in the United States. It is a communist type of theory to think that everyone is automatically entitled to health care. Another argument of the issue is over who should pay for it. The states opposed to the reform argue that they are already facing deficits and cannot afford to take on the enormous expense to pay for health care for all residents who cannot afford it themselves.

In the 2010 elections the Democratic Party lost control of Congress because the American people felt as though they did not listen to them when they voted for the health care legislation, as the majority of the people actually opposed this bill. The new congress was seated in January 2011 and has begun to repeal parts of the health reform challenge that they disagree with.