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In his first few days in office, Obama issued executive orders directing the U.S. military to develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq. He ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, but Congress prevented the closure by refusing to appropriate the required funds and by preventing moving any Guantanamo detainee into the U.S. or to other countries. On February 17, 2009, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion economic stimulus package intended to help the U.S. economy recover from the ongoing worldwide recession. The act includes increased federal spending for health care, infrastructure, education, various tax breaks and incentives, and direct assistance to individuals. In March 2009, he renewed loans for General Motors and Chrysler to continue operations while reorganizing. Over the following months the White House set terms for both firms' bankruptcies, including the sale of Chrysler to Italian automaker Fiat and a reorganization of GM which gave the U.S. government a temporary 60% equity stake in the company. he also signed into law the Car Allowance Rebate System, known colloquially as "Cash for Clunkers".
President Obama decided to expend much of his political capital on the centerpiece of his election platform: universal healthcare coverage. He proposed an expansion of health insurance coverage that would cover the uninsured, cap premium increases, and to allow people to retain their coverage when they leave or change jobs. His proposal called for an expenditure of $900 billion over 10 years. It included a government insurance plan, known as the public option, to compete with the corporate insurance sector in order to lower costs and improving quality of health care. His plan was to make it illegal for insurers to drop sick people or deny them coverage for pre-existing conditions, and require every American to carry health coverage. The plan also included higher taxes for insurance companies that offer expensive plans.
On July 14, 2009, House Democratic leaders introduced a 1,017-page plan for overhauling the U.S. health care system, which Obama wanted Congress to approve by the end of 2009. It generated a huge public debate during the Congressional summer recess of 2009. Obama delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9 to address concerns over the proposals.
On November 7, 2009, a health care bill featuring the public option was passed in the House. On December 24, 2009, the Senate passed its own bill—without a public option—on a party-line vote of 60–39. On March 21, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed by the Senate in December was passed in the House by a vote of 219 to 212. Obama signed the bill into law on March 23, 2010. The law faced several legal challenges, but on June 28, 2012, in a case styled as National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5–4 vote that the Act was constitutional under the U.S. Congress's taxing authority.
Obama won re-election as president on November 6, 2012, winning 332 electoral votes. He received 51.1% of the popular vote, making him the first Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to win the majority of the popular vote twice. As is the case for many presidents, his second term was more challenging that the first. Politics had become especially polarized and Obama's approval rating had continued to decline following his re-election, despite the fact that the economy was performing well. The rate of unemployment had dropped to 5.5% and would continue its decline. A continuing period of job growth had began in the second half of 2010 and would continue for the remainder of his presidency. Obama had approved an operation conducted by Navy SEALs on May 1, 2011, which resulted in the shooting death of Osama bin Laden.
2014 was a mid-term election year. Republicans had lost ground in the 2012 elections, and eight of the twelve incumbent Republicans running for re-election saw challenges from members of the Tea Party, but all Republican incumbents won their primary challenge.
Going into the elections, there were 53 Democratic, 45 Republican and 2 independent senators (both of whom caucused with the Democrats). Of the 36 Senate races, the Republican Party won 24 (a net gain of nine seats). This was the largest gain for a party in the Senate since 1980, and the largest Senate gain in a midterm since 1958. The Democratic Party won 12 seats, resulting in the Republicans regaining control of the Senate for the first time since 2006, with a total of 54 seats. The race in Louisiana headed to a run-off on December 6, 2014, in which Rep. Bill Cassidy (R) defeated 3-term incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu 55.9% to 44.1%. In House races, the Republican party won 247 seats (a net gain of 13 seats) and the Democratic Party, 188 seats. The Republicans gained their largest majority in the House since 1928.
In the midst of this campaign, Obama hit his lowest approval rating of 38% on September 5, 2015. Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama averaged an 83% job approval among Democrats and 13% among Republicans. That 70-percentage-point party gap in job approval ratings was the highest gap ever since such polls have been recorded. Part of the criticism stemmed from objection to several foreign policy initiatives of the Obama administration, including controversial negotiations with Iran which began in November 2013. An interim agreement was replaced with a deal being announced July 14, 2015, known as the "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action", which saw the removal of sanctions against Iran in exchange for measures that would prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons. While Obama hailed the agreement as being a step towards a more hopeful world, the deal drew strong criticism from Republican and conservative critics as well as from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In early 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, relying on a controversial referendum held on March 16, 2014. The U.S. had submitted a UN Security Council resolution declaring the referendum illegal, but the resolution was vetoed by Russia on March 15 with China abstaining and the other 13 Security Council members voting for the resolution. Secretary of state John Kerry in early March 2014 called Russian actions "an act of aggression that is completely trumped up in terms of its pretext. It's really 19th century behavior in the 21st century". On March 24, 2014, the U.S. and its allies in the G8 political forum suspended Russia's membership in the group. President Obama ruled out any Western military intervention in Ukraine, but admitted that Russia's annexation of Crimea would be difficult to reverse. Many Republicans and conservatives were critical of Obama for what was termed a weak response and made an issue of this in the mid-term elections.
As his term came to an end in early 201, Barack Obama left office with his a job approval rating of 60 percent according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. The same poll found that his successor Donald Trump had a 40 percent approval rating. Obama's increased rating was helped by an improving US economy. It is best to let time pass in order that some perspective can be acquired before assessing the presidency of Barack Obama. In the year since he has left office however, the assessment of many analysts has been that Barack Obama presided over an economic recovery and passed major domestic legislation, but was unable to bridge a partisan divide and ultimately left office with his party in a weaker state.