United States: loud debate about health care

(original article by Carlos Chirinos)

With Congress on vacation from assembly, American citizens have come to the front of the battle for health care reform in the United States.

It was raining, quashing the humid summer heat, and there were still hours left until President Barack Obama was expected to arrive in the small town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Despite this, a small crowd of people was already waiting for him in the streets, expressing their support or rejection of the health care reform.

This Tuesday Obama visited the New Hampshire town for an open council meeting to promote his proposed reform plan. There he encountered an image that has already become familiar to the democratic congressmen that have been using the same strategy as civic assemblies to gain popular support for the plan. There were protests against the health care reform that Obama is trying to implement.

On one side of the debate, supporters of the project wish for a system of universal coverage that includes the nearly 50 million people that are estimated to be without health care in the United States.

On the other side, many people assert that a system based on health care maintained by the public sector will only further the weakening of current conditions. Among themselves, they speak with true terror of the dangers of the “European style socialism” that Obama would like to introduce.

“Once the government enters into negotiations to provide its citizens with health care, the private companies will not be able to compete,” said Corey Lewandowski, who organized the demonstration against the presidential plans in Portsmouth.

“Healthy debate”

Neither side seems to have a completely ideal solution, nor does the proposed universal system – the White House already seems resigned to this – nor does socialized medicine as exists in Canada and some European countries.

But at least they’re trying for a “healthy debate,” according to Obama on Monday during the press conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. This was the final summit that North American leaders had with the Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, and the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

“I suspect that when we arrive in autumn and the people see the legislation that is being proposed, more reasonable and sensible arguments will emerge,” said Obama.

The White House has complained about the suspected strategy of “rumors” and “fear tactics” that would be used by the opposition to derail the health care reform project, which is currently the primary objective of the United States government.

Some Republican spokesmen have made it clear that they will take advantage of the debilitation that is plaguing the popularity of President Obama due to the health reform to give the first great political defeat to his mandate.