Obama's Health Care package passes, but now faces a difficult challenge

Very soon some 32 U.S. citizens--frightened away from doctors and hospitals due to exhoribant fees--will sigh in relief knowing that they have at least limited medical insurance. The House of Representatives made history by voting the first measure of this magnitude in the country’ history. However, when President Barack Obama signs the bill into law, not a few citizens will ask whether the hard fight to get the law approved has not become to gift to insurance  companies and hospitals. Others--the hard core conservatives who bombarded the measure with foreboding--will likely take to the streets and editorial offices to continue alerting the country to what they consider to be a threat to the U.S. “way of life.“

 

According to Dan Pfeiffer, White House Communications Director, “thousands of uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will have the opportunity to purchase quality, affordable health insurance. Beginning in 2010, small business owners will no longer be forced to choose between offering health care and hiring new employees because they’ll be offered tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums to help insure their employees. Medicare beneficiaries will no longer wonder how they’ll afford their prescription drug bills because they’ll be given a rebate of $250 if they hit the prescription drug donut hole in 2010. And early retirees will be provided help through the creation of a temporary re-insurance program to help offset the costs of expensive premiums.”

 

He added that citizens “will now have the security of knowing that insurers cannot deny coverage to your child because of a pre-existing condition. You won’t have to live every day in fear of having your insurance taken away from you if you get sick. And for new plans, there won’t be lifetime or restrictive annual limits on the amount of care you receive from your insurance companies…The legislation passed last night brings down health care costs for American families and small businesses, expands coverage to millions of Americans and ends the worst practices of insurance companies.”

 

The liberal Democrats and progressives expressed enthusiasm about the bill. For example John Nichols of The Nation suggested it was a milestone in U.S. legislative history, alongside Social Security, Medicare and the Civil Rights Act.

 

As a sign of the times, there were some suggestively ugly scenes outside the Capitol during final debate on the issue, according to Mother Jones reporter Suzy Khimm, who observed angry Tea Partiers (an ultra-conservative group) hurling racist and homophobic slurs at Democratic lawmakers in favor of the health care reform. Conservatives are strongly against State involvement in private enterprise, and in their diatribes frequently assert Obama’s bill is “socialist” or “comunist.” Their slogan: “Kill the bill!” A key point that irrítates conservatives is whether the bill might be construed to permit abortion.

 

The not-very-subdued racista inuendos have brought to light the fact that Obama is not white and a good part of those benefited by the new law will be Afro-American or of other racial minority groups. In the protest rally Adele Stan of AlterNet reported that one protester was arrested after spitting on African American legislator Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO).

 

To the chagrin of progressives, the final bill does not include a public health insurance option. The insured must pay for their policies--although diverse possibilities for obtaining credit  are available. The private insurance industry will certainly remain firmly in control, in fact buttressed by government subsidies and not having to compete with a public health sector. The oposición of the industry melted away when the public option was dropped.

 

On the positive side of the progressive agenda, defenders of the measure point out that  within the next 6 months, children will be allowed to stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26. Lifetime benefit caps are history, and annual caps will be regulated. Insurers will no longer be allowed to dump customers who get sick, or offer coverage to children for everything but their preexisting conditions.

 

“Health care reform is not an end in itself,“ concluded Lindsay Beyerstein in “The ITT List, “it’s a process. Passing this legislation is the first step towards establishing health care as a right of all Americans. Like any attempt to expand the rights of the disenfranchised, the struggle will be met with fierce resistance.

Although the issue has to do with medical care, it actually goes much deeper. In an economy strongly in the hands of private capital, to what extent should there be State control over private practices and abuses? That, in a word, is at the heart of the debate on medical insurance, as well as the ongoing present financial crisis. It also has to do with numerous other aspects of life in the country. The conservatives insist on reducing the activities of the State to an absolute minimum--although that does not include the Pentagon, nor the wars the country so often carries on abroad. The liberals tend to agree that the excesses of private capital should be at least monitored by the State. They also insist on continuing U.S. involvement abroad, although differ concerning the methodologies used to assert and advance that involvement.