**US President Barack Obama is due to sign his landmark healthcare bill into law in a ceremony at the White House.**He will be joined by Democrats from both Houses of Congress who supported the measure.
The new law will eventually extend health insurance cover to more than 30 million Americans who currently do not have any.
The bill was unanimously opposed by the Republicans, who regard it as too costly and say they will repeal it.
Correspondents say Mr Obama now has to sell the reforms to a divided American public before November’s mid-term elections.
KEY HEALTHCARE REFORMS
- Cost: $940bn over 10 years; would reduce deficit by $143bn
- Coverage: Expanded to 32m currently uninsured Americans
- Medicare: Prescription drug coverage gap closed; affected over-65s receive rebate and discount on brand name drugs
- Medicaid: Expanded to include families under 65 with gross income of up to 133% of federal poverty level and childless adults
- Insurance reforms: Insurers can no longer deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions
- Insurance exchanges: Uninsured and self-employed able to purchase insurance through state-based exchanges
- Subsidies: Low-income individuals and families wanting to purchase own health insurance eligible for subsidies
- Individual Mandate: Those not covered by Medicaid or Medicare must be insured or face fine
- High-cost insurance: Employers offering workers pricier plans subject to tax on excess premium
Q&A: What next for health reform
On Thursday, he will go to the state of Iowa to talk about how the new law will help to lower healthcare costs for small businesses and families.
After a heated debate, the House of Representatives voted 219-212 late on Sunday to send the 10-year, $938bn bill to Mr Obama. Not one Republican voted for the bill, and some Democrats also voted against it.
The measure, which the Senate passed in December, is expected to expand health insurance coverage to about 95% of eligible Americans, compared with the 83% covered today.
It will ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with existing medical problems.
Correspondents say the bill represents the biggest expansion of the federal government’s social safety net since President Lyndon Johnson enacted the Medicare and Medicaid government-funded healthcare programmes for the elderly and poor in the 1960s.
Mr Obama’s campaign to overhaul US healthcare seemed stalled in January, when a Republican won a special election to fill the late Edward Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat, and with it, enough Republican votes to prevent the bill from coming to a final vote in the Senate.
But Democrats came up with a plan that required the House to approve the Senate-passed measure - despite its opposition to many of its provisions - and then have both chambers pass a measure incorporating numerous changes.