A Republican Congress and President Bill Clinton
abolished a welfare programme in 1996 under the
(largely fallacious) pretext that it bred fraud,
waste and abuse. Thirteen years on, the reforms
that Barack Obama is proposing will not
fundamentally change the United States' abysmal
healthcare system because those who profit from
it have been able to buy protection from the
lawmakers. The welfare programme ditched in 1996
absorbed about 1% of the US budget; today's
well-ensconced private insurance companies
swallow most of the 17% of the budget set aside for healthcare.
Paradoxically, the US president is one of the
most spirited prosecutors of the system he has
chosen to retain. Day after day he recounts how
"we are held hostage by health insurance
companies that deny coverage, or drop coverage,
or charge fees that people can't afford for care
they desperately need⦠We have a healthcare
system that too often works better for the
insurance industry than it does for the American people".
<http://mondediplo.com/2009/09/ushealthcare>Link
--
Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/09/us-healthcare-sham.htm>monochrom
at 9/05/2009 01:38:00 PM
