July 2, 2012
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Who won the US health care battle?
The US Supreme Court upholds US President Barack Obama’s health care law. Republican leaders vow to repeal and replace it. Obama says it is about the American people, not about politics. So what does the decision mean for Americans and for the US presidential election?
The decision means that two years after Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – which aims to insure 32 million additional people and prevent coverage from being refused because of medical history – its key tenet thinly survived at the hands of a chief justice whose nomination Obama opposed when he was a senator.
“Today the Supreme Court … upheld the principle that people who can afford health insurance should take the responsibility to buy health insurance,” Obama said after the ruling.
Taking aim at Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is running against Obama for the presidency, and says he will repeal the law if he wins, Obama pointed out that his Republican opponent had supported the same mandate when he reformed healthcare in his state.
“We can’t refight the political battles of the past two years,” Obama said of the virulent protests against the law that erupted in many states.
“I’m as confident as ever that when we look back five years from now, 10 years from now or 20 years from now, we’ll be better off because we had the courage to pass this law.”
Although the US is the world’s largest economy, it is the only industrialised democracy that does not provide health care coverage to all its citizens.
Comments (5)
Health care should be provided by the national government, just as education, transport infrastructure and the fire brigade should be. This piecemeal legislation doesn’t go far enough because it keeps private health insurance in the loop. I’d also nationalise the banks but then, I’m growing more communist by the day.
My country provides coverage to all its citizens and the myths flying around Xanga and I guess America about us are just that. Myths. It’s great, and I wouldn’t trade it for America’s system for anything. To tie healthcare to wealth is just barbaric.
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