Big freeze: snowstorm brings chaos to America’s east coast
PRESIDENT Barack Obama has warned that the United States’ private healthcare system, which leaves up to 48 million people without insurance and drives millions into bankruptcy, will wreck public finances unless it is radically reformed.
Introducing Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius as his choice for health and human services secretary, Mr Obama said that medical bills caused one bankruptcy every 30 seconds and could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes this year.
“It’s a crisis punishing families, battering businesses, squeezing our states, and increasingly, imperilling our own budget. Healthcare is one of the fastest-growing expenses in the federal budget, and it’s one we simply cannot sustain,” he said.
“If we’re going to help families, save businesses, and improve the long-term economic health of our nation, we must realise that fixing what’s wrong with our healthcare system is no longer just a moral imperative, but a fiscal imperative. Healthcare reform that reduces costs while expanding coverage is no longer just a dream we hope to achieve – it’s a necessity we have to achieve.”
The president has invited doctors, medical unions, insurance firms, hospitals and drug companies to join Democrats and Republicans at the White House for a forum on healthcare reform later this week.
The US spends more on healthcare than any European country but health outcomes are worse than in Europe and tens of millions of Americans receive no regular healthcare at all.
Critics of the US system say it has a skewed system of incentives that rewards doctors and hospitals for performing unnecessary procedures and a business model that encourages health insurers to deny treatment to patients.
During last year’s election campaign, Mr Obama promised to make access to healthcare universal, although he stopped short of endorsing the idea of compulsory health insurance for all. He has suggested that Americans who are happy with their current health coverage should be allowed to keep it but that others would be given access to the scheme that now covers federal employees.
Mr Obama yesterday acknowledged that previous attempts to reform the American healthcare system had been defeated by well-funded lobbying campaigns on behalf of hospitals, doctors, drug companies and insurers.
“I realise that there are those who simply don’t believe Washington can bring about this change. And the odds are long. It’s failed too many times. There are too many special interests and entrenched lobbyists invested in the status quo,” he said.
“That’s the conventional wisdom, and I understand those doubts. But I also know this: I didn’t come to Washington to take the easy route, or to work for the powerful and the well-connected interests who have run this city for too long. I came here to work for the American people. I came here to deliver the sweeping change that they demanded when they went to the polls in November.”
A Roman Catholic who supports abortion rights, Ms Sebelius could face tough questioning from conservative senators during her confirmation hearings. She was the president’s second choice for the post, after former senate majority leader Tom Daschle withdrew following revelations about unpaid taxes and huge payments from the health care industry.
Mr Obama has chosen Nancy-Ann DeParle, a health policy official in the Clinton administration, to head the White House office for health reform – a post he had asked Mr Daschle to combine with that of health and human services secretary.
Ms DeParle understands the private health industry from the inside; since leaving government, she has been a director of big healthcare companies including Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefit manager and Cerner, a supplier of health IT.
