Obama’s Resurrection

Last Sunday night, when the House passed the health system reform, the presidency of Barack Obama was revived.

Over the past six months, the president had been strongly attacked by the right, which considers him to be a political radical, but he has been strongly hit with equal vehemence by the left, disappointed with an administration that did not fulfill its promise and achieved almost nothing.

Obama came under attack on many issues but none with the passion and anger that sparked his project to reform the health system. This triumph was not easy, took many more months than expected, was achieved without any support by the opposition but finally was realized and is a victory of historic proportions.

Seldom has the simple signature of a president changed so many lives. Obama will go down in history as the chief of the White House who triumphed, after a difficult year of arguments for and against and decades of failed attempts, in giving the country a health system through which all its citizens have access to a doctor.

The president deserves credit for having succeeded in changing how the health system in this country works, where all the medicine is privatized and where being sick can lead to your bankruptcy. Where to get over an illness was — until today — a privilege of certain classes and not a privilege for everyone.

The success of his plan rescued the president from being considered a loser in only his second year in office.

Because of Obama, there will be change, but it will not come overnight. In fact, the plan is scheduled to see long-term implementation in four years, when finally, in 2014, it will be required by law that all Americans have health insurance. By then, it is expected that 95 percent of citizens will have coverage.

Of the 46 million people now uninsured, 32 million of them will obtain medical insurance, which will be achieved through the adoption of this law that is perceived as a major social change, similar only to those of the past such as the implementation of social security pensions, medicine for the elderly and the poor and equality for minorities.

The health plan, which is expected in the coming days to obtain the approval of the Senate without major obstacles, however, is seen by conservatives on the right as another example of what they claim to be the dictatorial tendencies of a socialist president, while liberals are unhappy, because they argue that Obama gave away too much to pressure from large insurers and the powerful pharmaceutical industry.

At the end of the day, the new health system will not only increase taxes on the rich, but also lack the public choice that Obama had promised, by which the government could also be able to provide medical services.

Still, among other points, the plan provides that insurers cannot discriminate against children or adults if they are sick when they apply for coverage, allows parents to include children up to the age of 26 years in their policy, provides free preventive care to the elderly and grants facilitation for small entrepreneurs, who, in turn, provide health coverage to their employees.

It seems very hard to believe that, according to recent polls, half the population opposes a system of health for all, and it is even harder to believe that America is today the only country in the world among industrialized nations lacking a universal health system. Germany, for example, was the first to implement a health plan dating back to 1883, when it was created by Otto von Bismarck. In this hemisphere, countries like Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia and Peru have for many years been able to provide medical assistance as part of their social security.

Obama’s plan won by 219 votes in favor and 212 against, and it is easy to imagine that Republicans are threatening a legal and political campaign against it. According to the Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, immigration reform will be the first consequence.

Every day for months, Obama was attacked, his reputation and his motives questioned, but the victory was and is so far the biggest and best for his administration and one that surely will give more power to enforce the changes he promised. With the vote on Sunday, the second chapter of this presidency has begun.