Obama has Broken the Stalemate with Power Politics

It has been a huge achievement for the American president, Barack Obama, to steer a new health care system through Congress in just over a year. Although the Senate has yet to take the final step, he has achieved what his predecessors were unable to arrange for the past hundred years: compulsory health insurance for virtually every American.

For European observers, the debate in the U.S. is somewhat bizarre. For a long time it has been the norm here for a nation to show solidarity by hedging its bets against illness through compulsory health insurance. Also, in our eyes, it is incomprehensible that insurance companies can withhold cover from an individual if he or she falls ill.

In the U.S., where there is a profound skepticism of state regulation, the resistance to the reform has been, and continues to be, enormous. Republicans accuse Obama of “socialism” and shout “murderer” at their Democrat counterparts. Unfortunately, Obama was compelled to make further concessions to win over doubting Democrats. So he upheld the rule that no government funds may go towards abortion.

The big victory is that the president’s own personal efforts have been seen to pay off. After a difficult year, grappling with problems such as Afghanistan and Guantanamo, he had only limited time left to achieve success in health care — the most important issue in his election campaign. From November, when there are congressional elections in the U.S., the Democratic majority is more or less certain to disappear.

Although the Republicans cry that they will fight on against Obama’s health care system, it remains to be seen. People are not quick to allow their legal rights, once established, to be taken away. Nevertheless, the Republican position remains worrying. They will not contribute to the necessary reform of an expensive system that leaves many uninsured. In doing so, they appear to prefer partisanship to argument.

In the past, Obama has shown that he wants to bring about as much co-operation as possible between the parties. But there needs to be some willingness among both parties to achieve consensus, and this is lacking. Without doubt, the polarization of U.S. politics has, in the short term, been strengthened by this health care reform, but sometimes power politics is necessary to break the stalemate. It is a good thing that Obama has been up to the challenge.