The fight over President Barack Obama’s proposed reform of US health care is about a lot more than health. The proposition that every one in the world’s wealthiest nation should have access to medical treatment with those who could not afford it having their care paid for by the state would seem fundamental.
France like the United States is dominated by private health-care providers. The French government meets the bills for the poor. However, Paris very reasonably imposes a cap on the amount any medical procedure can cost. Those who can afford their own health care can pay more if they wish, but the government is not going to be throwing taxpayers’ money at private health professionals.
That surely is one of the concerns for the powerful US health-care lobby, which in the view of liberal Democrats sees medicine too much as a business and too little as a social good. There is no doubt that US health costs have spiraled in recent years, to the extent that the ubiquitous health insurers have actually been limiting their cover. Parallel with this has been the growing conception that health care is in fact death prevention. For a nation with such high-profile religious observance, this clear terror of mortality sits oddly. Put baldly, those with the money are prepared to pay whatever it takes if they believe the treatment can allow them to carry on living.
Unless ordinary Americans are prepared to protest the burgeoning cost of medical care, their already expensive insurance will continue to decline in terms of what it covers. It seems a no-brainer that some limitation has to be introduced, preferably on a voluntary basis by the health-care profession itself. At the moment, however, there seems no such appetite. The rabid way in which the so-called “town hall meetings” have been conducted over the summer largely by Republicans, demonstrates that there is no mood for compromise. Obama’s plans are branded variously as “socialist”, Big Brother and ruinously expensive.
Moreover this no-holds-barred opposition is coming not simply from the health-care industry and its right-wing supporters. There seem to be others who are seizing this chance to try and inflict a defeat on Obama’s health-reform plans and this for a very good reason. If the president can be humiliated so soon in his incumbency, he will stand less chance of succeeding with the other key parts of his administration’s agenda. Not the least among these are climate change and his Middle East peace initiative. Big business, for so long cosseted by the Bush administration, is acting, very probably with the US Zionist lobby to throw everything they can at the Obama health plans.
Right-wing Democrats who currently oppose the reforms should think hard on what it will mean for their party and their president if they join with Republicans to defeat them in Congress. They should recognize that the current battle is not just about health care but also the chance America now has to roll back the dishonorable Bush legacy and make a palpable difference in the world.
