National Interest USA

SIMON MANN

WASHINGTON: The US President, Barack Obama, has called for an end to the bitter debate over healthcare reform, committing Democrats to a last-ditch effort to pass laws that are expected to extend health insurance to an additional 30 million Americans.

To do so, Mr Obama confirmed the use of a parliamentary tactic known as reconciliation, but shrugged off Republican charges that its use would amount to an abuse of power.

“The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future,” Mr Obama said during a choreographed media announcement where he was flanked by medical workers wearing white lab coats.

“They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership.

“I do not know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right. And so I ask Congress to finish its work and I look forward to signing this reform into law.”

The palpable sense of urgency contained in the President’s announcement has been reflected increasingly in the words of Democratic strategists conscious that 13 months into the Obama presidency, the administration remains focused heavily on its healthcare reform and not on job creation.

With Mr Obama’s popularity sagging, data due for release today is expected to reveal accelerating job losses in February.

Unemployment sits a shade under 10 per cent, but the recession’s impact has hit black and Latino communities particularly hard, with jobless rates of 16.5 per cent and 12.6 per cent.

A further 20 million Americans say they still cannot get enough work.

Marc Morial, the president of the National Urban League, which works for economic self-reliance for African-Americans, said the US needed “a strong, targeted jobs bill … and we need it now”. He described the recent $US15 billion ($16.6 billion) jobs bill, with tax relief for small businesses that take on new workers, as “timid” and “weak”.

A victory on healthcare would finally free up Democrats to throw everything at job creation in the lead-up to November’s midterm elections.

But the course that the Democrats have chosen is complicated. The healthcare bill originally passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve will now be sent to the House of Representatives, where Democrats command a big majority. Once passed by the House, the details of the reform will be fine-tuned in a reconciliation bill that will take in some measures proposed by Republicans while extracting other highly contentious items that favour individual states.

While a reconciliation bill, like all legislation, requires a simple majority for it to be passed, debate on such a bill is limited to just 20 hours in each chamber, negating an attempted filibuster.

While reconciliation has been used more than 20 times since its introduction in 1974, Republicans argue that in this case it is inappropriate.

The Obama administration pointed out that the Bush administration used reconciliation to push through tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in 2001 and 2003.

A Republican senator, John Thune, said using the tactic for a big revamp of one-sixth of the US economy without any bipartisan support was ”unprecedented”. “It’s not a done deal,” Senator Thune said. He hoped “reasonable Democrats” would join Republicans to kill off the legislation.

First family to fly in … President Obama and his family will visit later this month. Photo: Reuters/Jason Reed

Barack Obama’s trip to Australia this month is in jeopardy as the US President pushes to clinch historic healthcare reform in America, one of his key election pledges.

Mr Obama, with his family, is expected to arrive in Australia on March 22 for a three-day tour after visiting Guam and Indonesia. But some fellow Democrats have expressed concern that the President’s absence will come during the critical final act of his revamp of the healthcare system, which is expected to extend health insurance coverage to an extra 30 million Americans.

Mr Obama will address a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament on March 23, the government confirmed yesterday.

”The United States is our most important friend and ally,” the leader of the house, Anthony Albanese, said in Canberra. ”President Obama will be a very welcome guest in our country.” Mr Albanese also announced that the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, would address a joint sitting next Wednesday.

Mr Obama said yesterday that Democrats would use a parliamentary tactic known as reconciliation to thwart Republican attempts to block the reforms.

”It’s his judgment call,” the Democrat congressman Elijah Cummings told the Bloomberg news agency. ”But it would be a good sign if perhaps the trip were postponed until we get healthcare done … Moments like this don’t come often. We’re at a crucial time.”

In Canberra, the US ambassador’s children are preparing to play host to the Obamas.

”My kids are practising their Wii skills so they can go one-on-one with Sasha and Malia,” Jeffrey Bleich said.

It was ”not accidental ”, Mr Bleich told the Herald in Sydney yesterday, that Mr Obama was visiting Australia earlier in his term than any other US president. ”The US has no better friend in the world than Australia and this is one way of demonstrating it in a very concrete fashion.”

He said the visit would reinforce a partnership already in great working order and there were no plans to ask Australia to provide more troops for Afghanistan at this time.

”All the big issues we are working on, we are working with Australia. I think the meetings between the President and Prime Minister will be about those big global issues – Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, counterinsurgency, climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, broader regional free trade, scientific and technological exchange.”

He expects China’s expanding role to be on the leaders’ agenda, but Mr Bleich played down the prospect of any role for the Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a conduit between the world’s two biggest economies. ”At the end of the day, it’s a bilateral relationship, and it has to be done bilaterally. That is how hard issues are addressed and how hard issues are resolved,” Mr Bleich said.

Some have portrayed China’s blocking actions at the Copenhagen climate change conference and refusal to back sanctions against Iran’s nuclear ambitions as signs of a more assertive foreign policy. Mr Bleich said he would not call China’s evolving interaction more assertive, but rather a reflection of a more mature relationship, and it was normal there was some friction.

with Ari Sharp