For what seems like an eternity, health care reform has been percolating through the halls of America's Congress. As the legislation has meandered through a complex and divisive process to become law, it has dominated the news on both sides of the border. Finally, a degree of healthcare reform has made it to be signed by President Obama.
From a Canadian perspective, it is difficult to imagine a country without the socialized medicine that we enjoy. We can go to the doctor, equipped with an OHIP card, not a MasterCard. In the United States, though, hospitals are literally run as businesses. Their billing departments hound patients who can't afford to pay many thousands of dollars for treatment. Insurers deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and even occasionally cancel coverage based on technicalities when their customers do get sick.
Everything is handled by health insurance companies in the States: they own hospitals, provide coverage and decide who receives what treatment. In certain cases, the government provides health care services, but only to some poor families and the elderly. However, the system falls apart when a citizen either cannot afford coverage or is denied coverage.
The sheer number of the uninsured is astonishing. Canada has approximately 34,000,000 citizens. In the United States, which has around 300,000,000, there are 47,000,000 uninsured people (men, women and children). The goal of the recently-passed law was to extend coverage to these 47,000,000, by adjusting the regulations enforced upon the insurance companies.
As they come into effect over the next eight years, the reforms will allow university students to remain on their parents' insurance plans until the age of 26, establish health insurance "exchanges" to foster competition and lower prices, force all Americans to purchase health coverage, provide subsidies to the poor, and expand government coverage beyond the poverty line. Insurance companies will no longer be allowed to drop coverage or discriminate based on pre-existing conditions.
However, there is a significant portion of the American public still opposed to the passing and enactment of the legislation. The Tea Party, one of the most significant opponent groups, has become widely known for decrying Obama as a socialist, comparing him with Hitler, and vehemently resisting passage. Republicans have vowed to repeal the law, which will be virtually impossible until 2013, at the very soonest. Even then, they'd need the significant majorities which the Democrats now possess, and their chances of attaining them are slim to nil.
It's still a far cry from the security offered by the Canadian system, but hopefully the reforms will improve the lives of the 47,000,000 uninsured, at the very least. The passage of the legislation is a major accomplishment for Obama, the Democratic Congress and for the American people, and will at least somewhat protect the right to healthcare in America.
