United States

In its final form, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would—once all its elements had taken effect over the next nine years—extend health care to some 32 million previously uninsured Americans and prohibit insurers from denying coverage to those with preexisting conditions. The bill, which required that all citizens obtain health care insurance, also provided subsidies for premium payments for families earning less than $88,000 per year, with the funding to come largely from a tax increase for the wealthiest Americans. It also promised a tax credit to small businesses that provide coverage for their employees.

Deepwater Horizon oil spill

In the spring of 2010, one of the Obama administration’s big economic initiatives, the financial rescue of General Motors, bore fruit as the automaker recorded its first profits in three years. In general, the U.S. economy seemed to be rebounding—if slowly. However, as the summer approached, unemployment stagnated at near 10 percent. Although the Republicans and some economists criticized the economic stimulus as ineffective and predicted the onset of another recession, others argued that it may have added more than three million new jobs.

Responding to the banking and finance meltdown that had precipitated the economic downturn, Congress in July enacted comprehensive financial regulations. However, the headlines in spring and summer were dominated by another event, a massive oil spill some 40 miles (60 km) off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico (see Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010). The spill, which dragged on for months, began in April with an explosion and fire on a deepwater drilling platform that then collapsed, spewing oil that endangered marine life, fouled beaches, and brought a halt to fishing in a huge area. Something of a national malaise set in as the ongoing efforts by BP, the well’s owner, to contain the spill proved largely futile, and the disaster escalated to become the worst marine oil spill on record. By the time the well was capped and the spill brought under control in July 2010, an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil had been released into the water.

Military de-escalation in Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan

A hallmark of Obama’s campaign had been his contention that the Bush administration’s preoccupation with Iraq had been to the detriment of the situation in Afghanistan; Obama argued that Afghanistan should have been the focus of U.S. military efforts. As security conditions in Iraq continued to improve, the new administration began slowly removing U.S. military personnel, with an announced goal of ending U.S. combat operations by mid-2010 and exiting the country entirely by late 2011. Meanwhile, in response to the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, in February 2009 Obama raised the total troop commitment there to 68,000 and began three months of deliberations on the military’s request for another 40,000 troops, ultimately deciding to deploy an additional 30,000 troops over the objections of many Democrats. The issue of national security took centre stage on Christmas Day, 2009, when a bombing was thwarted on an airliner bound for Detroit. The perpetrator, a young Nigerian, had been trained for his mission by extremists in Yemen.

In June 2010 Obama confronted a different kind of criticism when the commander of NATO-U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and members of his staff impugned top Obama administration officials in interviews with a reporter from Rolling Stone magazine. Obama relieved McChrystal of command and replaced him with Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the surge strategy in Iraq. Although the bulk of U.S. forces were withdrawn from Iraq in August with the official on-time end of the combat mission in the country, some 50,000 U.S. troops remained on duty there.

McChrystal, Stanley: resignationPres. Barack Obama announcing the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal while surrounded by (left to right) Adm. Mike Mullen, Vice Pres. Joe Biden, Gen. David Petraeus, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, June 24, 2010.Official White House Video

The 2010 midterm elections