US president-elect Barack Obama has begun laying the groundwork for overhauling the country’s troubled healthcare system, reaching out to interest groups and building grassroots support for the huge undertaking.
Obama, who takes office on Jan. 20, is using many of the Internet tools employed in his election campaign to engage the public. His Internet site www.change.gov asks people to submit ideas for changing the costly and inefficient system that leaves tens of millions uninsured.
“Every American is feeling the pressure of high health costs and lack of quality care, and we feel it’s important to engage them in the process of reform,” Obama transition team spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said. “Change starts from the ground up, and we believe that’s true on critical issues like healthcare reform as well.”
PHOTO: AFP
Obama’s coordinator on healthcare, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, was to participate in a healthcare reform debate in Colorado yesterday that was expected to begin detailing the plans for change.
During the campaign, Obama pledged to bring health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans and spend about US$50 billion to make health records electronic.
BIG PROBLEM
Many health reform advocates believe Obama will need broad public support to overhaul an industry that has become among the most intractable of US political problems.
Voters put healthcare reform as their third biggest concern after the economy and the Iraq War. Finding the money and ingenuity to fix the system will be difficult.
The US now spends more on healthcare than any other developed nation, yet has some 47 million people without health insurance.
Most insured people receive coverage through their employers, but businesses complain that exploding costs threaten their competitiveness in a global market.
High worker healthcare costs have been cited as a major reason why US automakers, which are seeking US$34 billion from the federal government, are in such trouble.
US healthcare costs now account for about 16 percent of US GDP — or US$2.3 trillion — a proportion projected to grow to 20 percent, or US$4 trillion, by 2015.
John Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable, part of a health reform coalition that includes the AARP, an advocacy group for older Americans, and the Service Employees International Union, said maintaining the status quo was not an option.
“The current system and its costs and inefficiencies is really unsustainable,” he said.
Daschle, the former South Dakota Democratic senator who is expected to be tapped by Obama to be health and human services secretary, has been in talks with consumer, business, labor and health industry groups that have stakes in reform.
“I think this is going to be a very cooperative endeavor that will involve both the president and [nominated] Secretary Daschle and the Congress,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a healthcare reform advocacy group.
“Obama and Tom Daschle are going to work very closely with the Congress in developing a proposal,” he said.
Obama will be able to lean on the grass-roots networks of groups that supported him during the election campaign, such as the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than a million healthcare workers.
Any reform has its winners and losers and while there is broad agreement the current system is unsustainable, many competing groups — consumers, labor unions, pharmaceutical companies, insurers and health professionals — will be pushing to protect their interests.
Lawmakers have already swung into action even though the new Congress will not be seated until Jan. 6.
“We are thrilled that there is this much activity this early on by this many committed leaders because the issue of healthcare reform is just that important,” said Jim Dau, spokesman for AARP.
SHARING THE JOY
Meanwhile, at the JW Marriott Hotel, US$1 million will buy you 300 hotel rooms, US$200,000 worth of food and private access to a tented, heated balcony overlooking the parade route of Obama’s inauguration.
Earl W. Stafford is buying it all — and giving it away to strangers.
Stafford, a Virginia businessman, plans to invite disadvantaged people, wounded soldiers and others to the prime location on the parade avenue. He’s calling it the “People’s Inaugural Project,” inviting those who would never otherwise have a chance to wear tuxedos or satin dresses to the president’s swearing in on Jan. 20.
‘AMERICAN DREAM’
“We believe it is important to include those who are less fortunate because like Barack Obama, we too believe in the American dream,” Stafford said on Thursday.
Stafford bought the package a week before the election, said Erick Speight, the hotel’s senior sales executive. Several corporations expressed interest, but Stafford was quick to turn in his deposit.
Guests found by nonprofits and social service groups will also get gowns and tuxedos, and grooming from hairstylists and makeup artists.
There will be a prayer breakfast and luncheon the day before the inauguration, Martin Luther King Day.
And if Obama were to show up?
Stafford said: “That certainly would be icing on the cake.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion