US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has described reforming the American healthcare system as a “moral imperative” and an economic necessity that cannot wait any longer. Speaking at a town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Mr Obama said that healthcare reform was central to the long-term prosperity of the United States.
“We have reached a point where doing nothing about the cost of healthcare is no longer an option. The status quo is unsustainable. If we do not act and act soon to bring down costs, it will jeopardise everyone’s healthcare,” he said.
“If we do nothing, within a decade we will spending one out of every five dollars we earn on healthcare. In 30 years, it will be one out of every three. That is untenable, that is unacceptable, and I will not allow it as President of the United States.”
Mr Obama has told Congress to pass a healthcare Bill by July but his proposals have faced strong resistance from Republicans, conservative Democrats and the healthcare industry.
Conservative critics, many of whom have received significant campaign contributions from the healthcare industry, say they cannot accept a White House plan to establish a federally funded health insurance programme to compete with private insurance.
Private health insurers fear that a public health insurance programme will drive down prices, while doctors and hospitals are worried that their fees will be cut.
Mr Obama said yesterday that Americans who were happy with their current healthcare coverage could keep it but he insisted that the public insurance plan would benefit everyone.
“If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and help keep prices down,” he said. “To those who criticise our efforts, I ask, ‘What is the alternative?’ What else do we say to all those families who now spend more on healthcare than housing or food? What do we tell those businesses that are choosing between closing their doors and letting their workers go?”
Moderate Democratic groups have launched an advertising campaign criticising conservative Democrats who oppose the plan.
Nebraska senator Ben Nelson had been one of the plan’s most outspoken critics. After an avalanche of ads exposing the $2 million he has received from healthcare and insurance companies, Mr Nelson said this week that he was open to a public plan.
Mr Obama will next week address the American Medical Association, a doctors’ group that has promised to resist any reform that will reduce fees.
“We should change the warped incentives that reward doctors and hospitals based on how many tests or procedures they prescribe, even if those tests or procedures aren’t necessary,” the president said. “Doctors . . . did not get into the medical profession to be bean counters . . . to be lawyers or business executives. They became doctors to heal people. And that’s what we must free them to do.”
