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President Barack Obama recently experienced a personal encounter that summed up the healthcare crisis in America. During a town hall meeting at Northern Virginia Community College last week, Debby Smith, 53, told President Obama about how she has struggled to find a job and health insurance since being diagnosed with kidney cancer. The president stepped down from the podium and hugged Smith and promised her that his staff would find ways to help her. Now, his staff has to find a way to help 47 million other uninsured Americans.
As unemployment rises and insurance premiums continue to increase, many Americans are being forced to live without adequate or any health insurance at all. These Americans are not visiting the doctor on a regular basis and are less likely to have important health screenings that could detect diseases or prevent illnesses. And those numbers will steadily increase unless unemployment numbers drop or a drastic overhaul occurs in healthcare.
President Obama is determined that his administration will act quickly to come up with a solution. “This is not a problem we can wait to fix,” Obama said. “This is not something we can keep putting off indefinitely. This is about who we are as a country. And that’s why we’re not going to pass health care reform ten years from now, or five years from now, or even one year from now. The United States of America will have health care reform in 2009. We will get it done.”
