Pandemic

It now looks likely that Obama will be able to sign some version of comprehensive health care reform by the end of the year. There are still numerous hurdles to leap, but the momentum appears to have built to the point that the discussion is about what the bill will contain rather than whether it will survive. Obama’s relative silence during the summer while his opponents were loudly disrupting town hall meetings and the tea party crazies were having their fun may have been the smartest strategy, after all. I was not alone in worrying that the president was letting the protesters get the upper hand, but it may have been his version of the rope-a-dope, letting the opposition wear itself out while cooler and more patient heads worked steadily to build the necessary popular support to pass meaningful legislation.

There’s no doubt that the vast majority of Americans want this reform; poll after poll shows a strong preference for finally correcting this country’s shameful inability to guarantee all its citizens access to affordable health care. The bills wending their way through both houses of Congress are not perfect, by any means, but they are a start in the right direction. History shows that once a framework is put in place, the necessary fixes will be made in time.

It’s not a done deal yet, but I’m more hopeful than ever that, at long last, this nation will join all the other countries of the developed world in making access to health care a basic human right for its citizens.