Refleksi : Apa sja akan diimpelentasi oleh rezim SBY dan konco-konco, kalau pada permulaan sudah terkait skandal Bank Pencuri, KPK dan masalah petinggi polisi. Bagaimana polisi bisa tangkap koruptor, kalau mereka sendiri adalah pagar makan tanaman?
http://www.theage.com.au/world/senate-vote-on-health-bill-a-win-for-obama-20091122-isrc.html Senate vote on health bill a win for Obama ANNE DAVIES, WASHINGTON November 23, 2009 TWO things will determine US President Barack Obama's political future: the trajectory of the economy, over which he has limited influence, and his ability to deliver on his hallmark domestic change, health care. He achieved a significant step towards that second issue at the weekend, when the Senate voted 60-39 to debate a bill that will establish a public health-care option not dissimilar to Australia's Medicare and rein in overall health-care costs. There are many challenges before Mr Obama can claim final victory. But he now has a little momentum behind him in a political system where merely overcoming inertia is hard. This vote is like catching a small wave. There is at least hope that the Democrats can rally their own 58 votes plus two independent senators to overcome what is known as the filibuster. And it is much further than the Clintons got in their efforts to reform health care in the 1990s. For Australians who have lived with Medicare for nearly 40 years, it is hard to comprehend how divisive the health- care issue is in the US. This debate can be seen as defining the difference between America's fervent belief in robust free market traditions on the one hand, and Europe's democratic socialism and its attendant higher tax regime on the other. It is being portrayed as a crossroads for America and its philosophy on capitalism. The US proposal before the Senate and the House is far less radical than Medicare: it is merely for a government player in the system rather than one with the dominance of Australia's Medicare. But inevitably if it is adopted, it will force American governments to rethink taxation - both the levels and the tax base. Already there is talk that the US needs a goods and services tax like that in Australia and much of Europe. The US Senate health-care bill would cost $US848 billion ($A927 billion) over 10 years and create a government-run insurance plan to pick up an estimated 31 million of the 47 million uninsured. It allows states to opt out of having the government option in their state - a nod to the fact that some states are far more hostile to the idea of a government scheme than others. However, the public option is on life support even as it begins debate in the Senate. Two conservative Democrats who agreed to allow debate to proceed warned that their voting yes to a debate should not be read as a yes to the bill itself. ''I am opposed to a new government-administered public health-care plan as a part of comprehensive health-care reform, and I will not vote in favour of the proposal that has been introduced,'' Senator Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat from Arkansas, said. Senator Mary Landrieu, a conservative Democrat from Louisiana, also warned that her vote for a debate did not necessarily indicate how she would ultimately vote. Senate Democrats now say the bill has little chance of getting to the President's desk until well into the new year, perhaps by mid-January. Such timing has always been a worry for the White House because it would push the final passage of the bill into an election year, with Democrats skittish about voter backlash against a plan that draws decidedly mixed reviews in the polls. Ads by Google [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
