Health Care For All

This has been an interesting week in politics around the world with more sleaze from our politicians - or at least half-a-dozen of them - a UK budget that ignored the government's vast debts, a new scheme to put Mr Humpty Dumpty from Belgium in charge of European Economic policy and the Israeli PM being spectacularly snubbed by President Obama. But, I suppose that the top story has to be President Obama's Health Care bill leaping over the hurdle of the House of Representatives and needing only a rubber-stamping by the Senate to give millions more Americans the right to medical treatment. The Republicans may huff and puff but in reality, the fight is lost. The USA has the start of a proper health care system that will care for rich and poor alike. All of us outside the USA in Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and so on have been mightily bemused by the struggle going on in America over this health care bill for well over 12 months. President Obama says that they have been struggling with it for over a century - which makes American social policy making seem to be controlled by the time spans that only the Vatican had previously operated. The USA has made no progress on health care since Lyndon Johnson famously bashed through Medicare in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy. For years the private health care insurance system has denied cover to those with pre-existing medical problems and those who were, frankly, too poor to pay. All together there were 50 million of them - among the "underemployed" more than 40% had no health insurance - and it was a scandal in such a rich country. The wild and ranting posturing that has spawned new political pressure groups was extraordinary. The Tea Party and other groups of extreme conservatives have more of the Klu Klux Klan about them than mere reactionary economic theories. The changes being introduced in the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act are revolutionary for the USA but for the rest of us they seem very modest. The fundamental problem with any system of privately funded health care is that the insurance companies do not want to insure the old, the poor or the sick. And it needs to be explained why American health care is so expensive - it costs 4 x as much per head as the UK - in spite of the campaigners using our system as a stick with which to beat the president and his government. The NHS is not perfect by any means and it does waste money but it does provide plenty for a lot less money than seems to be possible in America. But in the USA for the government to do anything at all brings charges of socialism and, indeed, communism. They truly need another Joe McCarthy to keep his eye on things.

The system is still basically crackers. Even those who are insured are often under-insured and this is particularly true among young people. Astonishingly, about 60% of personal bankruptcies in the USA are caused by medical costs. Even with the new legislation there are still some people outside the system and the USA remains the only rich country in the world that does not guarantee universal health care.

The latest opinion polls in the USA following the bill being passed by Congress shows that a majority are now in favour and 48% thought it was "a good first step" that needs to be followed by more action. Democrat voters were in favour by nearly 5:1. This shows that Americans have a much better understanding of the situation of their health care system than the anti-campaigners would have given them credit for.

The Republicans fought to the last, seemingly attempting to sabotage the pens that had been provided for Obama to sign the bill into law. But it was to no avail and America embarks along the road to Socialism - I think not.

/