US Healthcare Reform – crocodile tears?

I can’t pretend to be a political commentator or any sort of expert on US elections but I can confess to a continuing fascination with all things to do with the US Healthcare Reform Act.

Here in the UK, Obama’s defeat in the mid terms and the changing political landscape in Washington is big news. As Mark Mardell form the BBC states ‘Mr Obama’s fall from grace has been hard and fast. He has been pulled to earth by an electorate that is deeply divided, by a politics that has become tidal’

Most commentators here echo the view held by everyone I have spoken to in the US – that it is unlikely that the Republicans, even with their control in Congress, will be unable to bring about their previously stated aim of toppling the ‘Obamacare’ bill. But it is widely believed that they won’t make things easy for the President as he tries to push through reform.

As President Obama faces months of compromise deals, The Healthcare Reform Act, which was a masterful piece of legislative victory for him just a few short months ago, will now hang like a heavy burden on already leaden shoulders.

Obama lost a lot of friends, including me, when his disproportionate response to the ‘British Petroleum’ (or BP to everyone else in the world) incident offended many Brits and I suspect annoyed a few US citizens as he tried to divert attention from his struggling economic policies. But I do have just the tiniest sympathy as he faces narrower hoops and higher hurdles to bring his dream to reality.