Cuba's Lung Cancer Vaccine

The sudden shift in US-Cuba relations presents the world with a tremendous opportunity in the field of medical research, not least in developing a promising vaccine for lung cancer.

CimaVax is a vaccine treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, targeting a particular protein, epidermal growth factor (EGF), that attaches itself to receptor proteins on the surface of cells causing them to grow and divide. Cancers can cause the body to produce excess EGF to enhance the pace of cell growth. CimaVax is designed to stimulate the body’s immune system, prompting it to produce antibodies in response to the increase in EGF, preventing the protein from attaching to cancer cell receptors.

In theory, this will stop the signal that tells cancer cells to grow, slowing the cancer's likely growth. After 25 years of work at the Centre for Molecular Immunology in Havana, the drug was made available in 2011, free of charge, to patients at clinics and hospitals across the island while it underwent a third set of trials. Researchers looked for signs of an immune response among lung cancer patients and have so far found patients who have taken CimaVax do better.

The patients tested lived slightly longer - on average, between 4 to 6 months - while symptoms, like coughing and breathlessness, were reduced. The trial results also suggest younger patients fare better. Twelve people under the age of 60, who had strong immune responses, lived 15 months longer than previously expected. Any conclusions drawn should come with the caveat that only a small sample of patients were tested.

The politics of CimaVax 

CimaVax’s importance to Cuba is underscored by the fact that lung cancer is the fourth leading cause of death in the country. It is also the leading cause of cancer death in the US.

The results of the first trials in Cuba has triggered follow-ups by researchers in Japan and some European countries, but until now it has been politically impossible for the United States to undertake such trials. In December 2014, however, President Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro announced their move towards normalising relations. Since then, US delegates have visited Cuba for the first time in over 50 years and, last month, Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo visited Havana in a landmark event for the two countries.

At the same time, the Roswell Park Cancer Institute at the State University of New York closed a historic deal with Cuba’s Centre for Molecular Immunology which will allow Roswell Park’s researchers to bring CimaVax to the US, where it can be put before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The drug can then be put through trials later this year before potentially entering the US health market. With Roswell Park’s financial resources, collaboration may prove beneficial to cancer sufferers around the world as alternative applications of the vaccine are explored.

“The chance to evaluate a vaccine like this is a very exciting prospect,” Roswell Park CEO Candace Johnson told WIRED. The company’s research team plan to explore the vaccine’s potential as a preventative measure in line with a standard vaccine that focuses on preempting conditions rather than minimising their symptoms. It may even be used to treat prostate, colon, breast, pancreatic and other cancers.

The Obama administration has so far relied on executive power to remove restrictions against the importation of medical and research equipment from Cuba. Congress are yet to decide whether or not the US will ultimately lift the trade embargo. If it is lifted, this could a groundbreaking opportunity for scientific and medical collaboration between the countries.

Doing more with less

Notwithstanding five decades of economic sanctions, Fidel Castro gave priority to medical research and biotechnology. “They’ve had to do more with less,” Dr. Johnson told WIRED. “So they’ve had to be even more innovative with how they approach things. For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community.”

Following a 1981 dengue fever outbreak which infected 350,000 Cuban citizens, Fidel Castro set up a Biological Front to focus the research efforts of different agencies. Mr. Castro dispatched Cuban scientists to Finland where they learned how to synthesise interferon, a virus-fighting protein, bankrolling their lab. By 1991, Cuba had become a major exporter of pharmaceutical products, at first to the USSR, then across Latin America and the developing world.

Today Cuba exports healthcare globally. Cuban health workers recently flew to West Africa to provide support in the multinational efforts to contain Ebola. The Cuban government also ensures the prices of the drugs the country's doctors offer are far below others on the market, in order to give developing countries a preferential option. As part of “south-to-south technology transfers” Cuba has provided support for China, Malaysia, India and Iran to set up pharmaceutical factories.

NOTE: In 2004, Cuba's biotech capacity was noted by American critics, such as UN ambassador John Bolton, as a potential basis for developing "biological weapons". The Cuban government strongly denied these accusations and invited US scientists to observe the laboratories.

As a result of these efforts, Cuba receives $8 billion a year in foreign exchange and financial support from the World Health Organisation. Export of medical services has not just brought in revenue - it has led the Castro brothers to grant over 100 patents to scientists and, in effect, open up the country to intellectual property rights. The prospect of normalised relations between Cuba and the United States thus holds enormous potential for the scientific community.

This article was originally written for The World Weekly on May 14, 2015.

The Great Rip-Off.

 

There was hardly any outrage in the air when the Health and Social Care act of 2012 was passed. The act stipulates that NHS doctors take control of their budgets as well as permit them to buy services from private companies. Another stipulation is to allow hospitals to use up to 49% of hospital beds and theatre time to generate private income. The section 75 regulations stipulate that the sectors of the NHS which can’t be ‘provably’ run exclusively by public provision will have to face competition from the private sector. Lord Phillip Hunt said that the regulations will “promote and permit privatisation and extend competition into every quarter of the NHS regardless of patients interests.”[1] He added that the reform will make privatisation the default position as the burden of proof is placed on the shoulders of any commissioner opposed to private health provision.[2]

The Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners has stated that these reforms “remove the legal framework for a universal, publically provided, publically managed, publically planned, democratically accountable health service.”[3] Concurrent to these reforms the Coalition has been underfunding health services. In the first budget of the Coalition government, George Osborne announced a 1% increase in funding for the NHS. Yet that amount falls short of the pace at which health costs rise, which is sometimes 2% or 3% above inflation. There is a correlation to this policy. Waiting lists increased by 43% from 2010 to 2012.[4] Fortunately for David Cameron the media has yet to raise more than a whimper of questions about these reforms. It was Lansley who claimed that the NHS has to face cuts for a shortfall of £10 billion to be avoided.[5] Then this year came talk of a £30 billion shortfall at the end of the decade.[6] The government’s prescription: cuts, cuts, cuts.

This is the apogee of decades of health-care policy in this country. The Thatcherites first introduced private companies in the area of cleaning services and even went further to provide contracts to private companies willing to invest in the construction and operation of services. Public-private partnerships were established, effectively subsidising private companies with tax-payer money. The cleaning contracts commissioned from the private sector have led to rising costs for hospitals and a decline in hygiene standards. Out of this came the rise in MRSA.[7] New Labour continued and furthered these developments. The performance targets based on market standards were expanded and health-care professionals were left jumping through even more hoops. The rhetoric of New Labour was decentralisation they offered to ‘free’ hospitals from central control and allow local people to ‘own’ their own hospital.[8]

As of 2005 the UK government was looking to shift 10% of the work of existing NHS organisations to the private sector.[9] The NHS signed contracts with eight different health-care providers to set up fast-track treatments centres to treat 250,000 patients over five years. The programme forced some NHS hospitals to close down wards. In 2011 Andrew Lansley was forced to admit that 60 hospitals were on the “brink of financial collapse” as a result of public-private partnerships first started by John Major and expanded under Blair. The hospitals could not meet the high payments being demanded by private companies. The cost of these gluttonous companies feeding off of the public health service has been bared all along by the British tax-payer. Care homes for the elderly have been privatised just as prisons and now the post office have been. The pig-out goes on.

Yet these developments are not unprecedented around the world. In Canada it was the Conservative Mike Harris who introduced the public-private partnerships in Ontario to open up public assets to corporations in the financing of new facilities and the operation of support services.[10] Diagnostic clinics for MRIs and CT scans were opened up to private companies.[11] Many have introduced all kinds of hidden costs, with one place even charging $100 for an orange juice.[12] These measures were expanded and deepened by Liberal and Conservative administrations. Almost 30% of Canadian health expenditure came from private payments in 2010.[13] More and more there are user fees for those without private insurance and physicians can block treatment if you don’t pay up. Private health-care payments account for 3.1% of Canadian GDP. The spread and scope of private clinics is being expanded still.[14]

Meanwhile in Australia the government of Tony Abbott has confirmed that they will be pursuing the privatisation of Medibank and has not ruled out any further privatisation schemes.[15] Just as the British health system has been underfunded the Australian equivalent has endured cuts in the number of public hospital beds from 74,000 to 54,000 from 1983 to 2009.[16] Effectively this means a 60% cut when the growth in population is taken into account.[17] The Rudd government excluded from the commission’s review, the current 30% rebate for private insurance, which currently costs $3.7 billion annually, so as not to antagonise the insurance companies.[18] The successive Gillard government initiated an austerity programme leading to cuts being set to health budgets in New South Wales of $3 billion, $1.6 billion in Queensland and $616 million in Victoria.[19] So the incremental process of privatisation is not contained to this tired little island.

The forces behind these shifts are not just national but international. The yet to be finalised free-trade deal between the US and the EU may well have troubling implications for the future of universal health-care throughout the EU and not just in the British Isles. It looks like the agreement will open up public services – including health – to private investment and ownership.[20] It would appear as though the Bolkestein directive has only been reconstituted in its mission to see the European Union become a mere managerial edifice for a liberal market economy. At the same time we can see Obama has initiated a series of conservative health reforms in one of the few civilised countries without universal coverage. In the sectors that have profited from the chaos of the American situation there are keen eyes for the potential gains in plundering the NHS. We have been denied a debate on the privatisation of health-care, but as we aren't going to be given one. We should decide for ourselves what kind of society we want to live in and take action.

This article was originally written for the Heythrop Lion.

 

---

[1] http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/experts-speak-why-section-75-nhs-privatisation-regulations-are-such-a-threa

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/03/heal-m19.html

[5] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/dec/26/nhs-cuts-shortfall-report

[6] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23266318

[7] http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/02/nahs-f08.html

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] http://www.globalresearch.ca/medicare-the-privatization-of-healthcare-in-Canada

[11] Ibid.

[12] http://www.torontosun.com/2011/08/31/ontario-committed-to-universal-health-care-matthews

[13] http://www.globalresearch.ca/medicare-the-privatization-of-healthcare-in-Canada

[14] Ibid.

[15] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/23/abbott-confirms-plan-privatise-medibank

[16] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2009/08/medi-a06.html

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/24/heal-j24.html

[20] http://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/gus-fagan/eu-us-free-trade-and-risks-to-nhs

The coming demise of the NHS.

 

On May 13^th the BBC finally opened the floor to ‘discuss’ the health-care reforms that have been passed and are well under way. The section 75 regulations of the Health & Social Care act of 2012 was passed by the House of Lords on April 25^th this year. The mainstream media, whether right or left, failed to give any coverage to this bill passed and yet it concerns us all. Even still, it was nice to hear a bit of noise once the bill had been passed and, effectively, the public was powerless to do anything about legislation already passed. You would have been lucky to have uncovered these proposals via the splutters of outrage on Twitter, or on the blogosphere, or indeed at the outer-reaches of the liberal press. Instead of the crusading press we're told we have, we actually have a cowardly press that let these health reforms pass them by. The intelligentsia and commentariat, with its agenda-setter the BBC, might be best understood as a herd of ‘independent minds’.

Even when we hear talk of the plans there are only banal platitudes about ‘reform’. When at the best of times ‘reform’ is a word to be suspicious of, especially when it is deployed with ease by the incompetent and duplicitous political class of this country. The Health & Social Care act will radically transform the way the NHS works, in fact, it will open the floodgates to private companies and enforces competitive bidding for contracts. That's on top of the hundreds of contracts on health services already sold in 2012. The act will require that all sectors of the NHS which can't be provably delivered by one provider (the state) will be opened up to competition. From now on the only hope of the NHS will be the commissioners, for they are now on the frontline of decisions about privatisation. Yet only if the commissioners can be make the case that this or that service has to be provided by the state. That's assuming the case will even be accepted, your guess is as good as mine.

Once rejected the services will be opened up to the full brunt of market forces. There is also the possibility that the real decisions will not be made by commissioners but by the courts. As Lord Philip Hunt has acknowledged, the regulations will “promote and permit privatisation and extend competition into every quarter of the NHS regardless of patients interests. The Lords reported that many NHS professional institutions believe that the regulations make competition the default approach, whilst imposing a burden of proof on commissioners wishing to restrict competition.” So it's fair to say that the doctors won't have a say in these decisions for the most part. If the doctors don't have a say then the patients certainly have no say in the matter at all. The Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners has said “The new reforms of which these regulations are a key part remove the legal framework for a universal, publically provided, publically managed, publically planned, democratically accountable health service.”

The Conservatives can claim that this isn't privatisation because the NHS will still exist. Yes it will exist, but as a hollowed out shell where public money is funnelled into the private sector to raise the profits of private health-providers in this country. The truth is that if there are private companies eating away at the public sector then that is privatisation, it is just incremental as a means to the same end. The state bureaucracy will only be supplanted with a private bureaucracy, which will be run on the basis of profit at the expense of the tax-payer and almost certainly the quality of service. Decision-makers at the local level will be at the mercy of changes out of their control as funds are redirected from local services. The decline in services will be sped up, as it has already, to justify further ‘reform’. Gradually the whole edifice built in the aftermath of WWII will be reduced to a mere memory. A lot has already lost, as it was the Major government and its Blairite successors who introduced markets into the NHS by way of ‘performance targets’.

 

Unfortunately, none of this should be a surprise. The Coalition has cut NHS funding effectively by only increasing spending by 1% while health-costs soared at a rate far higher than inflation. The press would rather whinge about the coming collapse of A & Es. But not about the mass closures of these services and the cuts in funding for those not closed. There is plenty of angry talk to be heard about the European ‘super-state’ that has been imposed on us without referenda, yet how much talk has there been over these changes to the NHS? No one in the public space seems to care. On the horizon there is a free-trade deal with the US that will open the NHS to the full force of American multinationals. The phoney democrats in Parliament are adept at calling for referenda when it suits their purposes. There wasn't any talk of a referendum on the invasion of Iraq, only a couple of million people marched through London and Blair reacted with pieties: we live in a democracy so you can have your protest, but it means nothing.

It is the unfortunate combination of a constitutional monarchy with a flawed form of Parliamentary democracy that failed to stop these measures being passed. Why? Because there are systemic interests shaping the legislative process. As the Daily Mail reported in 2012 Lord Carter, the head of the NHS regulator, as well as the Cooperation and Competition panel, received almost £800,000 from just one of the health firms to which he is entangled. Andrew Robertson has compiled a list of 140 Lords and 65 MPs with what may be direct interests in private health-care. From the list Robertson gauged that this amounts to one out of every four Conservative peers, one in six Labour peers and one in ten Liberal Democratic peers. This is a problem across the board, endemic to the political class and system. According to Dr Eoin Clarke, since 2001 the Conservative Party has received over £8 million in donations from private health-care firms. We may not know the full extent of this until the political class opens itself up to a transparent accounting. But it should be obvious that this is only a part of the problem here.

 This article was later posted on the Third Estate on May 22nd 2013.

Health-care in the Big Society.

We're All in this Together.

If you care dearly about the National Health Service and don't wish to see it destroyed in your life time, please sign this petition and partcipate as much as you can in any upcoming anti-cuts demonstrations.

The National Health Service was founded on the idea of universal health-care in the Labour government which was in power from August 1945 to January 1951. It was the creation of the great socialist Aneurin Bevan and we ought to remember his words "No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means." Almost every developed society has a national health service of some form, the notable exceptions being South Africa and the United States. The NHS was established as the welfare state was created in order to combat the 'Giant Evils' identified in the Beveridge Report of '42, namely squalor, disease, idleness, ignorance and want. Since the very beginning there have been attempts to repeal the NHS, and take us back to a private health-care system, bit by bit over 30-odd years it has been undermined. By 2007 NHS had fallen in ranking to number 18 in the world standards of health-care. France held the position of number 1 and the United States was at number 37.


 
In the same month of Christmas the glare of the press shifted from student protests to the cuts the National Health Service is facing. Those of you who have a memory span longer than 6 months may recall the claims made by all three political parties to ring fence the NHS from public spending cuts. It should not surprise you that this was another instance of lying on the part of the political class. Just as the party-line of the Coalition - that the funding of the NHS is not being cut but increased by 1% over 5 years - is a misleading lie. The costs of health-care may rise by 1% or 2% above inflation which would make the "increase" a cut in effect. The rest of the cuts are being made under the guise of "efficiency savings", or "productivity savings", which involves moving work out of hospitals into poly-clinics and encouraging people to treat themselves. These cuts come to £20 billion in total, not including the effective cut in funding for the NHS over 5 years. For the sake of necessity these "savings" are already being made to avoid a shortfall of £10 billion.

The architect of the reforms is Andrew Lansley, the man who once claimed that the recession will allow most people to spend more time with their loved ones and was later forced to apologise. Lansley's office was bankrolled by private health-providers like Care UK, the CEO of which contributed £21,000 to fund the personal office of Mr Lansley in November 2009. In 2009 Care UK provided services for half a million patients last year, working with all ten Strategic Health Authorities and one in three Primary Care Trusts. It runs hospitals, NHS Walk-in Centres, GPs’ practices and care homes. As of January 2010 it ran 59 residential care facilities with over 3,000 beds. Close to all of Care UK's business is with the NHS, 96% to be specific, which amounted to £400 million in 2009. No wonder the Tories pledged to increase the use of private providers before the election and now we see these reforms on the menu. As with the contributions of banks to the Conservative Party from 2006 to 2010, which added up to £16 million, we should not be surprised when Cameron bails out the banks.

So it shouldn't surprise us that these health-care reforms favour the wealthy, after all a "reform" is a change you're supposed to like and is rarely interchangeable with "revolution" - except perhaps in the way that Thatcherism was "revolutionary". As part of the overhaul of public health Mr Lansley has set up five responsibility deal networks on which businesses and ministers come up with policies. Along side groups like Cancer Research UK and the Faculty of Public Health an array of private companies will sit, many of which are in the food and alcohol industry. The alcohol responsibility deal is chaired by the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. The food network includes Compass, the company attacked by Jamie Oliver for it's turkey twizzlers, as well as fast-food companies and processed food producers. Not only do the leading supermarkets have a place in this network, influencing health policy, but so does PepsiCo who own Walkers crisps along with the Fitness Industry Association - a lobby group for private gyms and personal trainers.

 The Time has come to Grow up!

So keep in mind that in the background there is a convergence of class interests invested in a health rationed by wealth and not need. The "policy community" in the shadows consists of corporations, management consultants, think-tanks, freelancers and hired hands, including some academics and doctors. Oh and of course there is the "revolving door" letting company envoys can get jobs in the Ministry of Health, and ex-ministers and officials can get well paid jobs in the private sector. The model is the American health-care system and it's unlucky for us that we have a government keen on defending our independence from the EU and not the US. We ought to look at the US to see what we might become if we lose universal health-care. There is public funding for health-care in the US, but it is only a way of covering the costs of private enterprise and providing the bare minimum. In many states public funding for health-care has been cut to balance the budget and reduce the deficit - sound familiar? In Arizona this process has gone as far as cutting funding for organ transplants, leaving people in need of such transplants to die, even though Governor Brewer has been given $200 million in stimulus funds to spend.

Then in the Monday of the New Year, formally known as the month of January, David Cameron told critics of the health reforms to "grow up". Along with some words about the NHS being "second rate", though he was keen to correct himself as the Freudian slip tore a fissure in his public image and revealed the truth to the "bewildered herd" who would surely trample him. Notice Cameron spoke of the importance of choice and claimed not to be speaking of any grand ideological vision. This is nothing new from a market liberal, the freedom of the individual to choose out of a wide range of options is placed above any interest of community or society as a whole. As Hayek thought, human beings are not naturally disposed to living in a market economy and will attempt to rebel against it. People don't really want the "material progress" promised by neoliberalism, it is an "involuntary" affair as seen around the world, people must be coerced or "educated" into accepting such radical reforms. In the case of Britain the government has chosen the method of "education", by which I mean telling us over and over again it's the only way to go.

"There is no alternative" is the mantra of the Con-Dems and the right-wing media, as it was under the Thatcherites. Of course the media neglects to mention that government debt as a proportion of GDP is 70%, which is far lower than the 260% of GDP it added up to after WWII which was before the NHS was founded. In recessions tax-revenue go into sharp decline as a result of rising unemployment and the collapse of companies. So the normal rate of public spending, which typically increases as tax-revenue increases, was no longer sustainable. However, the fall in tax-revenues is a result of the recession which means the best of dealing with the issue of debt is by increasing economic growth and creating jobs. This would require a move away from 'Big Finance' to manufacturing and maintaining a high rate of expenditure by raising taxes. Instead the government are making the deliberate decision to cut spending and in doing so increasing unemployment whilst undermining the safety-net that would soften the blow to those put out of work.

David Cameron has taken a hyper-active approach to governance with the intention of going further and faster than Thatcher ever did. The current incumbents have not even been in government for a year and we're seeing the economy being put through "shock therapy", at the same time universal education and health-care are being undermined. Now there is talk of the mass-privatisation of British forests. At the same time we've seen how fragile the Coalition is on a number of issues, the student protests wobbled the government and support among Lib Dems fell to 21 votes in the end as thousands stood outside in the cold being kettled. The stealth privatisation of the NHS is to be taken as seriously as an attempt to undermine suffrage. If voting is a civic duty because of the centuries of fighting that, so is defending universal health-care.

The "Debate" on Obama-care.

There is an ongoing "debate" in the United States regarding the health care reforms proposed by the Obama Administration. Now I say "debate" because it is more like a series of rants for and against the reforms, these rants come from opposing parts of the power concentrated in "Corporate America". For decades health care has been the leading issue for the American population, but it's only recently that this "debate" has become so lively. The health insurance companies, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, are the dominant force behind the opposition to the reforms. The pharmaceutical industry spent around $400 million on advertising and lobbying Congress in recent months, this was done to protect their interests and for years it worked in their favour. Whereas, the major corporate support for reform comes from the manufacturing industry. Companies like General Motors seem to want reform in order to cut costs and increase profits. Because of the inefficient health care system in America, it costs General Motors over $1,000 more to produce a car in America than it does in Canada. When a major sector of private power contradicts a rival power, the end result is this "debate" we see in the media.

Many conservatives and libertarians in America have been extremely vocal in their opposition to the reforms. A notable incident involved Republican politician Sarah Palin, who made the following comment "The America I love is not one where my parents or baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's death panel." Most individuals seem to have made up their minds already, by speculating on what the consequences of Obama's reforms will be. A large number of American citizens were seen confronting politicians at town halls across the US. Though, there were rumours that many of these crowds represented lobbying groups that favoured private health care. The advocates of universal health care in America claim that objections to the reforms are largely based on misunderstanding. Misunderstanding fuelled by right-wing propaganda designed to feed into the culture of fear that is prevalent in American society. This kind of propaganda is easy to spot, it's marked out by talk of death panels, tax-payer-funded abortions and free health care for illegal immigrants.

But it wasn't until Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan appeared on Fox News and discussed the NHS with Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, that this so-called debate became a transatlantic one. While discussing health with the consummate angry white men of Fox, Daniel Hannan criticised the National Health Service and even went as far as to say that he wouldn't wish the NHS on anyone. Hannan is no stranger to controversy, he was condemned for referring to the NHS as a "60 year mistake". And Fox News doesn't have the best reputation in the world when it comes to presenting a "Fair and Balanced" perspective on world events. In fact, Fox News is viewed by many as the propaganda wing of the Republican Party, others view the media outlet as a source of comedy. Hannan has been a darling of Fox News and many right-wingers since he appeared on YouTube, criticising Gordon Brown for his "juggernaut-like" spending. In his talks with Sean Hannity, he claimed that Britain had experienced "ten years of socialism" which is a laughable claim, even for an admirer of Enoch Powell.

Investors Business Daily claimed with confidence that "Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK where the NHS would say his life is essentially worthless." To which Stephen Hawking responded "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS." This kind of glib critique is what mostly emerged from the political right during the transatlantic phase of the ongoing debate. Such criticism has been met with outrage around the United Kingdom, Twitter crashed on the day that Daniel Hannan made his appearance on Fox News. It does seem plausible to conclude that the opposition, let alone the American people, are more than a little misinformed about reform.

The proposed reforms should be a move towards a single-payer health care system, in which all health care is funded by the government but hospitals and doctors may remain private. This is not a system in which the government "runs" health care, as claimed by conservatives. This system has been accused of increasing costs as opposed to decreasing them. It should be noted that the current health care system itself has about twice the costs per head than any many other systems in the world. While the "socialised" aspect of the American system costs a fraction of what the privatised aspect actually costs. Regardless of whether or not such a system would cost more, the massive budget deficit will probably sway the effectiveness of instituting such social programs.

The facts are that the health care system in the United States is far from the best possible health care in the world. According to the latest data provided by the World Health Organisation, the United States health care system is number 37 in the world's health care systems. The United Kingdom is ranked at number 18 . There are around 50 million Americans who don't have insurance and 1 in every 4 insured Americans go without treatment due to the high cost of health care, which is the fault of health insurance companies. These are the reasons that health care has been a major political issue in America for decades. Not because corporations have been preoccupied with the issue, but because health care has remained a major issue for the American people. "Corporate America" has been more than happy to avoid the issue, stifle debate and maintain silence for decades.