By Benny Asman

The promise by President Barack Obama to establish a health insurance for all Americans is about to disappear into thin air. The original proposal is already watered down to such a degree that it hardly can be called a reform. In its watered down version it will not give good protection to the 47 million US citizens who have no health insurance and risk economic ruin in cases of illness or accident.

‘Obama is a socialist!’

Still, a hate campaign has been launched against the now timid proposal. The ultra-reactionary Fox News TV, rabid radio presenters like Glen Beck as well as ultra-conservatives, like Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, have scented out the deep fears presently engulfing poor, white America. The economic crisis, rising unemployment and an irrational fear that white ‘middle class America’ will soon be a minority in society (symbolised by the White House already being ‘lost’ to a black person) has opened up the Pandora’s box of racism.

The extremely aggressive critique attacks the very idea of having state run heath insurance. Private insurance companies will be put out of business, it is argued. Opposition views to ‘Obamacare’ say that the state should not interfere with peoples’ freedom to choose health care providers. The state shall not interfere with free choice.
In the sleaze media ‘Obamacare’ is socialism, or even communism. A proposal to give health insurance cover to approximately 50 million citizens is transformed into a debate about whether or not Obama is about to build a ‘USSA’ (United Socialist States of America).

‘There will be death panels!’

An even more absurd attack has been launched. ‘Obamacare’ will organise ‘death panels’, as Sarah Palin puts it. According to her and other neoconservatives, the state will introduce panels that rule over the life and death of old and sick people. The state will start to decide for whom it will ‘pull the plug’. The accusation is so absurd and lacking in any substance that Barack Obama and the Democrats find it hard to defend themselves against it. How do they respond? ‘No, we are not planning to introduce mandatory euthanasia’ sounds weak and pathetic while the hawks repeat the slander again and again. Sleaze media even compare Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler.

The threat from compromise

Still, scaremongering is not the biggest threat to the reform, but Barack Obama’s own readiness to make compromises. His administration is bowing under the pressure from the pharmaceutical industry and the private insurance companies.

It has already been agreed that the state shall refrain from using its market power to press down the prices of medicines. In exchange for this, the pharmacy industry will lower the prices with $80 billion over a ten-year period.

This $8 billion a year can be compared with the industry’s yearly $300 billion profits. Representatives of the industry in fact give a ‘high five’ to this deal. They were already planning to ‘impose’ price cuts on themselves in an effort to block out producers of generic medicines.

In addition to this, another crucial retreat is on its way: the new health insurance will probably not be provided by the state. Speaking at a meeting in Connecticut at the end of August, Obama said that ‘this is not the most important’ issue.

No competition from the state

If there will be no competition from the state, the state system called Medicare will take care of those over 65 years of age and the so-called Medicaid will provide a minimum of health care for the extremely poor. All the rest, below 65 years of age, will simply be forced by the new law to choose between private companies.

This is bad news. During the last decade, insurance fees have already increased four times faster than the general price development. The private insurance companies frequently use their right to exclusion, thereby not covering people they regard as in the ‘risk zone’ of becoming ill.

Maybe Barack Obama had something else in mind during the election campaign. But what is now lying on the table of the US Congress already lacks teeth. When the mills of the Congress are finished with their grinding of this already hollow reform, only the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry will be the ones rejoicing.

Benny Asman is a freelance journalist and an Amandla! contributor based in Brussels.