Michael Bradford

To say most Europeans are not well-informed about the health care debate in the United States would be putting it mildly.

I can’t count the number of times someone in my town near Zurich has asked how I feel about President Barack Obama’s zeal for passing European-style health reforms. But I can say that every time I give them my reply, they look shocked and a little indignant.

It’s not Europeans’ fault that they don’t know the gritty details around the health care circus in U.S. politics. They get sound bites of the debate on their news shows and the coverage in their papers is largely slanted in favor of President Obama. His popularity still is high in Europe even as it has ebbed in polls in America.

Most Europeans were unimpressed by polls that showed the majority of U.S. residents wanted Obamacare scrapped, and the president’s determination to ramrod the legislation is not a sign to most Europeans that he ignored the will of the people. They see it as gutsy.

With little objective media coverage, it’s not surprising that many Europeans view anyone who would dare oppose President Obama’s way of revamping America’s health care system as mean-spirited and lacking in common sense.

“Why is it so difficult?” a Danish man barked at me recently. “Why doesn’t America have what we have had for years?”

America could have a health system like Denmark’s, but most U.S. residents are not in favor of total government control.

Most Europeans don’t understand that the majority of U.S. residents would like to see health care reform, but are offended by the way the legislation was crafted through back-room deals despite the president’s pledge of transparency.

When you point out that many Americans oppose the reforms because they believe the changes have less to do with health care than with government control, you really lose the European audience. Government control is as comfortable here as an old pair of lederhosen.

It does no good to tell Europeans that you oppose Obamacare because it will cost about $940 billion. They are aware of the president’s promise that his reforms will save the country money—the same money that will be placed under your pillow by the tooth fairy.

I’ve talked with U.S. health care professionals who see the reforms as a burdensome government intrusion. But here in Switzerland, I found my doctor among those who are mystified as to why so many U.S. residents oppose Obamacare. “But it will create jobs!” he argued.

That’s right. The numbers indicate that about 17,000 new Internal Revenue Service em-ployees will be needed to keep track of whether everyone is purchasing coverage—a vast expansion of government control.

Americans who think Christmas has arrived in the health care legislation should consider what’s under the tree in Europe. Granted, here in Switzerland, where coverage is mandatory, you don’t have to bring a lunch pail to a doctor’s appointment; the Swiss will honor an appointment time. But Americans will not be happy with Swiss-style premiums. The high cost is the reason I chose to keep my coverage with a U.S. insurer rather than opting into the Swiss system.

So much for cost savings from mandated coverage.

Or consider the British system: You can save money under England’s National Health Service, but you may suffer through very long waits to access some services. And President Obama’s plan to bring tens of millions of new patients into the U.S. system is certainly not going to speed things up.

What I can say to my European friends is that if most Americans had wanted this reform, there never would have been so much heated debate. But in this case, Americans spoke up, but no one in the administration really listened.

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This entry was posted by Adam V. Russo on Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Health Care Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.