A practical measure of care for all

Yes he can. Today, US President Barack Obama is savouring his first bipartisan victory in Congress with the passing of the health care reforms.

The bill, the most comprehensive reform for health care in four decades, essentially provides basic medical insurance to 32 million Americans caught outside the system.

It has long been a source of shame for many Americans that their poor, elderly and disadvantaged would be denied medical care based solely on the grounds that they could not afford to go to hospital or see a doctor.

While the nation could access billions of dollars to wage wars on foreign soil, on its own lands, one-in-ten could not see a doctor.

The president had staked his political reputation on the passage of the reform package.

The strong lobbying efforts of medical insurers and medical associations had demonised the reforms as a step towards socialism, dredging up worst-case scenarios from public health care systems in Canada and Europe as prima facie evidence that government-run health services were intrinsically sick.

The death of Senator Ted Kennedy and the subsequent loss of a full senatorial majority for Democrats meant that Obama's bill would not be as far-reaching as originally intended, offering instead Medicare-light to the millions without coverage.

By passing the bill on Sunday night, US members of Congress voted for a practical measure of medicine for all. Failing to do so would have left the sick, the terminally ill and fragile elements of US society on the fringes just as they have been since basic Medicare was introduced in the late 1960s.

With his most pressing domestic policy solved, Obama must now turn his attention to pressing matters of foreign policy: the war in Afghanistan, seeking a fair and just solution for all Palestinians and dealing effectively with Iran.