Winds of Change at Obama’s Back

As 2009 comes to an end, President Barack Obama presented the American people with a true Christmas gift; the Senate finally voted on Thursday in favor of his medical care reform project.

Bringing nearly a century-long of intense and often acrimonious debate and systematic obstruction across the country, the upper house finally endorsed this project. This health insurance bill will allow some 31 million Americans who have been left out of the system to be eligible for adequate and affordable health coverage.

Consequently, 94 percent of Americans under 65 years should be covered by the reform adopted by the Senate, whose text will have to be integrated into the bill that the House of Representatives adopted last November.

Until then, Republicans will undoubtedly continue to undermine the process; however, it would be surprising if they manage to derail the project. Therefore, it seems plausible to expect a presidential address by the end of January, probably just prior to the State of the Union Address.

This decisive vote by the American Senate is most certainly one of the most significant events to occur in the United States in more than 40 years. Let’s recall that it was in 1965, when the government ruled that it would assume responsibility of health insurance for the elderly.

The recasting of health insurance embarked upon by our neighbors to the south constitutes, in and of itself, a minor revolution. President Barack Obama will have re-written history after he successfully overcomes the many obstacles cast in his way to allow the greatest possible number of its fellow citizens to have a say.

Obama made health reform a national priority, and it seems that the challenge, a dream long cherished everywhere among Democrats for close to a century, has been met.

It was 1912, when Ted Roosevelt considered attacking the issue of health reform. Since then, no less than seven presidents gnashed their teeth while trying to improve general accessibility to health insurance.

In all cases, lobbying groups, representing the interests of the powerful insurance companies, rebutted them. And the Republicans always tried to minimize government intervention, particularly in the health sector.

It’s hard for us, as Canadians, accustomed as we are to a universal system of health insurance for close a half-century, to figure out how the greatest power in the world has not yet laid out a decent system health. That is an apt illustration of how the private sector exerts a determining influence on political decisions in the U.S.

Still, this reform project is far from perfection. The U.S. already injects into health much more money than the average industrialized country, with results which are far from compelling.

In particular, the system encourages the multiplication of prescriptions and the over-consumption of drugs. And nothing indicates that this tendency will be reversed.

And as with many rich countries, the health needs of the aging population in the U.S. will grow proportionally with the arc of this demographic curve.

Consequently, given the addition of the new recipients, the coverage of the health benefits will require the additional expenditure of 900 billion dollars by the American Treasury over the next 10 years. This sum of money should normally be absorbed by higher taxes and budget cuts, but only the future can tell if this forecast proves accurate. Despite everything, the irreversible winds of change that blow across Obama’s America decree that the promulgation of this health reform be impossible to circumvent.

There will be time in the next few years to correct whatever the imperfections the reform presents now.