Have U.S. Republicans made a colossal mistake by battling health care reform right up to the end? Continuing with our look at global reaction to President Obama’s legislative triumph, Philippe Coste of France’s L’Express writes that he’s shocked not only at Republican shortsightedness, but, compared with European health care, with the modest size of the reform itself.
For L’Express, Philippe Coste writes in part:
There is perhaps twenty minutes of debate left before a vote on the most important American social legislation since Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” in 1965, and a person can only wipe their eyes watching the Republicans turn their backs on history by excluding themselves from such a decisive moment for the purposes of short-term tactical gain. At the moment, not one, not even a single one, will vote with the Democrats for a reform which, after all, doesn’t hold a candle to the health care systems in Europe – but which will prevent over thirty million of their fellow citizens from having to resort to emergency rooms for access to a doctor.
There’s not even the shadow of a public option or direct care by the state in the plan, where the only redistribution takes the form of subsidies to those unable to afford private insurance. The principal affront to the status quo, and this is significant in this country, merely requires insurers to cover patients with pre-existing conditions. But to listen to a Republican representative from Wisconsin tell it, “this legislation is paternalistic and condescending, it is a European-style system that violates our Declaration of Independence and the ideals of liberty that founded this great nation.” House minority leader John Boehner began his speech by citing his “heavy heart.” They were all choked up. It was as though they could hear the tanks of totalitarianism driving toward the Mall of America.
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