without harry we would not have passed the recovery act. helping to prevent another great depression. without harry we wouldn t have saved people s jobs, helped people stay in their homes. without harry we would not have passed wall street reform, reining in some of the worst announces of the financial industry. without harry, there would be no affordable care act. people forget that there were many times during the debate over health care reform when it looked like nothing was going to get passed. but harry, working with nancy pelosi in the house, working with then vice-president and now president, my partner in this fight, joe biden, harry refused to give up. maneuvering and applying pressure like only he could.
momentarily for chuck schumer, a longtime lieutenant of harry reid to speak and speaker pelosi. but then of course. barack obama will be make a you llgy. it s impossible to over-the-intertwined legacies. but not for harry reid, the afraido affordable care act wouldn t have been passed. the economic stimulus measure wouldn t have been passed. certainly president obama will talk about the relationship he enjoyed. and president biden will close the service, delivering remarks as well with, a longtime colleague in the senate and close friend of hair harry reid. on a beautiful day here in las vegas, mourners gathered inside to celebrate the life and legacy of harry reid, jim. all right. jeff zeleny thanks for bailing us out there. mark of a true professional broadcast journalist ready to go at any moment.
presidents, and former president barack obama is delivering the eulogy. he he said he couldn t have been president without harry reid. reid was one of the big leaders in the democratic party at the time planting the idea in his head that it would be a good idea for him to run for president. what does that say? we know harry reid was proud of the fact that barack obama gave him a lot of credit for that run. what are your thoughts? well, i think to become one of the most consequential people in american and public life speak well of harry reid and that everybody looks up to him because he was he was tough. and listen, to the fighting point, he was a fighter. and he wanted to get things done. and he did. barack obama is one of his legacies. so is the affordable care act. and so was the effort made to shore up the economy back in the
pre-existing conditions, residual health benefits, key protections required by the affordable care act wouldn t be available driving premiums down for the plans but the problems would be, do republican senators want to deal with preexisting conditions and more importantly, would insurance markets be able to handle that? the big question, where are senators on this? very wary of this idea. listen to what white house legislative affairs director mark short had to say. are you worried that they ll push it so far to the right that you re going to lose a lot of those moderates you need to have? no, not at all. we support senator cruz and senator lee s efforts. this is similar to efforts that transpired in the house and we think it s perfectly appropriate, his amendment and hope it s part of the process in bringing everybody together. reporter: my ears perked up, sounded like like a tacit endorsement. whether the white house gets
fixed. there is a pretty straightforward answer. doing the affordable care act wouldn t delay people with cancer or diabetes or parkinson s. you can play the need for mental health services or prenatal health care. but delaying the affordable care act doesn t delay the foreclosure notices for families forced into bankruptcy by unpayable medical bills and it doesn t delay the higher costs all of us pay one uninsured americans are left with no choice but to rely on emergency rooms for care. and so for millions of americans, delay is not an option in people s lives depend on us. too many people have been waiting for to long to obtain affordable health insurance. we want to save families from going bankrupt and save the lives of our friends and neighbors by allowing them to detect medical issues early because we want to keep prices down and delay is not an option.