A view of St. Pauls in London
Well, the southpaw finally signed on the dotted line and the Land of the Free is no longer the Land of the Anxious or Unwell. Someone should scribble the words equality and fraternity on the base of the Statue of Liberty as she looks across New York harbour to the future, which promises health care as a right for all rather than a privilege for the few. Thanks to Obama and the determination of the Democrats, Emma Lazarus’ tired, poor and the huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, along with the American poor, can breathe easy in their beds at night knowing should their child fall sick, they will not be turned away by the medics in the white coats.
The costs are almost beyond comprehension and its hard to work out the noughts once figures reach the billions and trillions. Not one Republican voted for the bill, and the annual health care costs will now be the highest per capita of the developed nations. But could America turn her back on the sick and look the other way? There are ways of raising the cash. Thinking laterally. Has anyone ever worked out the price of the war in Afghanistan in terms of blood and treasure? Both prices are too high and history teaches that no one goes into Afghanistan and comes out the victor. The race to the Moon and Mars. Is that a prize worth having beyond the care of a sick child, an aged parent or a dying mum?
No one could accuse President Obama of lacking courage or conviction. Neither has he chosen the easy path of short-termism, which drives most politics and politicians. Presidents are often hostage to fortune. Abraham Lincoln watched as his country was torn apart by civil war, Roosevelt was faced with the Great Depression of the thirties and the Second World War, but neither of them flinched. Lincoln fought for the Union and the abolition of slavery. Roosevelt dragged the country out of the depression.
President Obama has ensured his place in history with his healthcare reforms. An election pledge made in the heady days when his Inauguration speech and oration skills warmed him to a nation and those far beyond the White House. On that cold January day, he gave hope to many. That was the easy bit. Words cost nothing. He will be wise enough to know that the battle has only just begun. Any five-star general will tell him, it's not the war but what happens after to secure the peace.
The battle of health reforms in the USA has been watched with interest this side of the Atlantic. We are a group of law abiding, tax paying individuals who watch our taxes spent on benefits not just for the needy, but on the greedy and indolent, who see it as their right to be kept by the state. All too often, they live in households with no role model, wage earner or father - each generation passing the baton of benefit dependency to a future generation. Fractured homes raising feral kids with no hope or aspirations beyond the next week’s benefit cheque, the next fag or the next episode of their favourite soap. Betrayed by the policy of politicians who lack the courage to change the status quo. Less Robin Hood, more death by a thousand tax cuts.
We keep our economy afloat. Just. But we have become a two-tier people: the private sector and the public sector. Fairness for all rings hollow as an election pledge when public sector workers have jobs for life and copper bottomed pensions; which unless reformed will be an unserviceable debt for generations to come. The private sector has taken the hits – the redundancies, the lost pensions and the lost dreams. The public sector worker seems oblivious to the change in the landscape and the debris and destruction of the recession, protected by their profligate paymasters in Parliament.
We get screwed by every initiative, which emanates from Whitehall, and have watched our democracy quietly be ceded to the powers of Brussels. We are a people without a voice. A people with too many inept dishonest politicians who fiddle down to the last chocolate bar and feather their nests with their gold-plated pensions. We who were the guardians of free speech have become the most spied nation on the planet with surveillance cameras on every street, and a police DNA database the envy of states of tyranny. Talk of immigration and the heavy hand of censorship is wielded clutching the word xenophobia or racism. We learn to speak one-way in public and quite another amongst ourselves. Free speech has become sacrificed on the altar of human rights, and the state has become complicit in protecting those who abuse the system at the cost of the law-abiding majority. But if we are sick, we can still access the medics in white coats free of charge.
Our National Health Service (NHS) came into force in 1948, driven by the Health Secretary, Aneurin Bevin. It is funded by national insurance contributions from the tax payer and employer. Health care is given free at point of access from the cradle to the grave, but the NHS should not be viewed with rose tinted spectacles by our cousins across the pond. What began all those years ago, born out of inequity, poverty and suffering has become a bloated, bureaucratic, unwieldy beast, gorging itself on ever increasing funds from the cash strapped tax payer. Hospitals fight for funding, consultants are presented with ever increasing workloads and unattainable targets and Quangos multiply overnight whilst politicians seek feel good headlines from the white coats. The NHS now accounts for £100 billion pounds annually and employs 1.3 million people. That is an increase of nearly a quarter of million employees since 1997. Try managing that sort of work force efficiently. It works in cases of dire emergency, though eleven-hour waits in casualty are not unknown and many customers/clients/patients are driven away to the private sector.
The unpalatable truths are that the NHS was never envisaged to cover the demands of science pushing the medical boundaries, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), liposuction and a demographic time bomb of an ageing population. Add the demands of an International Health Service, whereby those who access the system have never made any contribution, and the NHS is not a model from which America should seek to emulate. Altruism comes at a price and the NHS needs radical branch and route surgery. It has become the holy cow. Politicians dare not speak its name or the word ‘cuts’ and expect a cross in the box on ballot day. Too many have vested interests and no one has the courage to criticise and say it. Those who state it's not only the patient who is not well, or that the service is in slow, terminal decline, gets crucified by compliant politicians and a tabloid press.
The President of the United States has other economic worries to keep him awake in the White House: the dirty, five-letter word “banks”, curtailing executive bonuses and regulation of the counting houses. How he squares these issues in a country built on the principles of capitalism is not for the faint-hearted, but address it he must at some stage.
For President Obama, the journey has only just begun and the Statue of Liberty can glance over her shoulder and know that America takes care of its own. Equality. Fraternity. Liberty. But a word of caution. The President and his Democrats would do well to cast an eye across the cold waters of the Atlantic and see where the grand dream of Bevin’s health for all is turning into a nightmare.
This installment of "From The G-Man" proudly featured special guest commentator Sara Woodward, a freelance writer and resident of London. She is also a blogger for the golfing website http://www.
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London landscape photo credit: Sara Woodward
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