The US president has urged congress to agree on sweeping changes to the country’s healthcare system, amid mounting opposition to his own overhaul proposals.

Barack Obama delivered a primetime address to a special joint session of the US congress on Wednesday.

“I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” he said.

The US was the “only advanced democracy on earth … that allows such hardships for millions of its people” because of the state of its healthcare system, Obama said.
He explained that an overhaul was urgently needed in a country where about 30 million people cannot get health insurance.

Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds, reporting from Capitol Hill where Obama made his speech, said the healthcare issue was one of Obama’s sternest tests as president so far, and could be pivotal to his presidency.

Although the Democrats have control of the upper and lower houses of congress, failure to win broad support on changes to the healthcare system could weaken Obama politically and negatively affect other items on his policy agenda, our correspondent said.

The formulation of a healthcare bill suitable to both Democrats and Republicans has so far proved elusive, despite the efforts of a six-member bipartisan panel tasked with drafting a new policy.

‘Breaking point’

Warning that the US deficit would grow, more families and businesses would go bankrupt, and more people would die if congress did nothing, Obama said: “Our collective failure to meet this challenge – year after year, decade after decade – has led us to a breaking point.