Barack Obama has finally clinched it. After a lifetime of trying to introduce free healthcare for all, something which most of us in Europe take for granted, the Democrats have finally brought down the last bastion of conservatism and the world's most advanced nation will be able to provide the billions of dollars needed to look after the health of those who cannot afford the exorbitant charges of the insurers. If you were sick and uninsured in the US you are as good as dead.
One would imagine that the credit crunch had lots to do with this final assault, which breached the walls of this hitherto impregnable fortress. Just imagine it.
The battle for free healthcare for all has been raging since the Kennedy era, so much so that the late Ted Kennedy never tired of championing it!
What a pity he did not live long enough to see his dream come true.
We in Malta take free healthcare for granted. Most of us have little or no idea what this is costing the Exchequer. We also have not too many scruples about using it or abusing it.
That, however, is not for me to judge. The difference between old St Luke's Hospital and Mater Dei Hospital is like comparing a slum to Versailles. It is of paramount importance that this jewel in the crown of governmental achievements should remain as is, providing the healthcare we all require and deserve as citizens of Malta.
As an electoral war horse, healthcare is a dead cert winner, which is why I found the battle on US soil so puzzling.
The American system is probably even more convoluted than the Venetian system and it appears that senators on both sides of the House were more concerned with the money given to finance campaigns by the insurers than the votes of the common people.
This Democrat breakthrough will certainly turn the American economy on its head. Maybe now the US of A will not spend so much on armaments and, maybe, just maybe, there will be more harbingers of peace flying out of Capitol Hill than dogs of war. So, in the opinion of a humanist like me, the change in the US economy is a change for the better.
The American populace at large has reason to be grateful to the Democrats for pulling this one off after so many decades of back-biting, betrayal and skulduggery, although I have a feeling that the battle is not quite over yet and some skirmishing with stray bands of guerillas in the Senate may still be on the cards. Be that as it may, the Bill is now at a point of no return.
In Malta, we have had free healthcare for decades. Successive legislatures believe in this to the extent that our general hospital today is literally the equivalent of a five-star hotel in as far as hospitals go.
There are detractors who deem it to be an extravagance but, as a building, as a concept and as far as facilities are concerned, the standards are excellent and the present government appears to be searching to improve these continually.
When free healthcare was introduced in Malta the only private hospital as such was that of the Blue Sisters, which was more of a nursing home than a hospital. The British had Mtarfa and Bighi hospitals, which, correct me if I am wrong, were, in 1979, left in top working order to the then Malta government. What happened is a story that relies on hearsay and conjecture. Suffice it to say that Mtarfa was turned into a housing estate while Bighi was ransacked and left to ruin.
The sad thing is that, had these hospitals continued to function along with St Luke's, there would have been no need to build Mater Dei, would there? No use crying over spilt milk I hear you say and you are, no doubt, right, however, it is amazing how many millions of euros of my money and yours dear reader are wasted by successive governments on projects that, with foresight and good husbandry if not good housekeeping, would not have been necessary.
Can Malta sustain such lavish and all encompassing healthcare in future? That remains to be seen. I feel that no political party in its right mind would ever dream of backtracking on this sacred pact with the people of Malta by even one millimetre. The opposition sometimes insinuates that there may have been talks to introduce some payment methods calculated according to means tests but when one thinks that in America they are already discussing whether tanning clinics should fall under the free scheme and to what percentage, then the mind boggles at how far our transatlantic cousins can go as I sometimes find their methods even more inscrutable than Fu Manchu's.
Mater Dei is and will always remain the social war horse of the government whether Labour or Nationalist or whatever. It can never be otherwise unless the incumbent government has a death wish and, in the long run, the US, once its citizens, as we do, begin to look upon free healthcare as a necessity and not a luxury, will go the same way.
kzt@onvol.net