America’s “War in Secret”: The 2012 Presidential Election

It is unclear whether the health care reform issue will seriously injure Obama in the next presidential election. But there is no doubt that in the upcoming election war the main battlefield will still lie in economy and employment. In the next two years, the biggest pressure that President Obama is going to face will come from stimulating the economy and boosting employment. This pressure is likely to “transfer” to other countries.

On Jan. 19, the United States House of Representative passed a resolution to cancel the health insurance reform bill passed by Congress last year. Health care reform again became a hot topic in the United States.

Last year, Democrats used their majority position in the House and the Senate to force through a medical reform bill, despite Republicans’ objections. The medical reform bill then signed by President Obama became his major achievement in the past two years. However, after last November’s congressional elections, the House was taken over by Republicans, who opposed the medical reform bill. It is no surprise that the House “repealed” the Obama medical reform bill after the November election.

The House resolution, however, does not mean the Republicans can complete their task of repealing the medical reform bill completely. That is because President Obama has signed the medical reform bill; in order to completely “abolish” the bill, not only do the Republicans need a joint resolution from both the House and the Senate, but they also need a majority vote to overturn President Obama’s veto power. At this moment, the Republicans only have the majority in the House. They are still the minority in the Senate, which makes them unable to complete the task at hand.

Even though the health care reform bill has become law, the debate about health care reform is far from being settled. Both parties are well aware of this fact. Right now the Republicans are pushing the House to pass a resolution to “abolish” the health care reform bill. It is obvious that they want to put this issue back on the table, in order to question President Obama’s main achievement. From the Republicans’ point of view, if the population against the health care reform bill is more than the population for it, this issue can become a powerful “political bomb” to drop on Obama and the Democratic Party, severely injuring their support base and thereby letting the Republicans gain profits from this issue.

With the 2012 presidential election drawing near, it is expected that both before and during their campaigns, the Republicans will continue to launch political attacks against President Obama and the Democratic Party on the health care reform issue. Not being able to abolish the health care reform bill, the Republicans are likely to use its majority position in the House to “tighten the pocket,” in order to block funding of the bill. After all, Obama’s health care reform bill will need $940 billion in the next 10 years. Without money, the reform cannot be realized.

The bad news for Republicans, however, is that Obama’s approval rate is coming back up. On Jan. 20, a recent poll showed that Obama’s approval rate was more than 50 percent, for the first time since mid-2009. On the same day, a White House spokesman said that it was very likely for President Obama to seek reelection in the 2012 presidential campaign. Even though the 2012 election still seems far from now, the two sides are ready to put on a good fight.

It is unclear whether the health care reform issue will hurt Obama in the next presidential election; however, there is no doubt that the main battlefield in the next election will still lie in the economy and employment. It would greatly increase Obama’s chance of being reelected if, in the next two years, the U.S. economy shows signs of significant improvement and the unemployment rate decreases drastically. Otherwise, it will cast a shadow on Obama’s reelection campaign. Therefore, in the next few years, Obama is expected to take more actions to stimulate the economy and reduce the unemployment rate. In other words, stimulating the economy and boosting the employment rate will be the biggest pressure that Obama faces in the next two years, and the pressure is very likely to be “transferred” to other countries. Specifically, other countries will receive more pressure from America when it comes to issues that concern the U.S. economy and employment, like open market, balancing trade deficit and exchange rate. In the future, China and other countries should take precautions in handling these issues.