Obama faces 'Waterloo' and asks for public support over health reform

BARACK Obama will tonight make a televised appeal to the Americans to save his floundering health reform plan in what Republicans are describing as the US president's Waterloo.

Health reform has been one of Mr Obama's top priorities, but Congress is baulking at the trillion-dollar cost of providing universal health coverage to all Americans.

Republicans say failure to force through legislation in time for the president's August deadline may cripple his presidency. "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo," said Republican Senator Jim De Mint. "It will break him."

Tonight's appeal, to be screened on all major news networks, is the fourth time in six months Mr Obama has sought to appeal, over the heads of Congress, directly to the public.

Mr Obama yesterday said critics of his reform bill were putting profits of health companies ahead of patients. "They would maintain a system that works for the insurance and drug companies but not for American families."

"This isn't about me," he said. "This isn't about politics. This is about a healthcare system that is breaking America's families."

With the White House pulling out all the stops to get the plan approved, First Lady Michelle Obama has begun touring America urging support for reform. "The current system is unsustainable and I don't have to tell any of you that," she said.

Americans pay twice as much for their healthcare, through private insurance, as the British, Canadians and French pay in tax through state-funded care systems – and these costs are continuing to rise.

"It puts a massive dent on your monthly budget," says Melissa Alonso, a New York corporate events producer.

Like millions of Americans, she cannot afford comprehensive health coverage, and her insurance premiums come with a £30-a-time surcharge for each visit to a doctor. She recently saw one prescription drug jump from £4 to £22 and says she would be in favour of state healthcare, if premiums fell. "I don't care who's providing the coverage, I just don't want to pay so much."

But attempts to dismantle a system that relies on private insurance and private hospitals and replace it with some form of state control are proving a political quagmire – despite the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress.

The House of Representatives last week agreed a so-called "millionaire's tax" – a surcharge on the better-off to pay for part of the $1.2 trillion (£732 billion) cost of providing cover for the 47 million uninsured Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office has announced that even with this surcharge, to be applied to Americans earning more than $250,000, the government would still face a multi-billion dollar bill to make up the difference.

And with the Senate refusing to endorse the plan as it stands, House leaders are having a re-think, leaving Mr Obama's 8 August deadline in peril.

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steel accused Mr Obama of having a "socialist agenda" in seeking to pay for universal care by raising taxes on the rich and increasing government spending.

He said: "Mr President, you are putting your party's entire big-government wish list on America's credit card. But that card comes with a bill."

Supporters say the only solution to spiralling costs is universal health coverage: "There are too many people who can't get healthcare," said Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell. "It's the No 1 priority."

But it is not just the ordinary people who are suffering. The government currently pays about half the country's medical costs, through Medicare and Medicaid health care for the elderly and bills are rising.