The health care debate in the United States looks to be finally over.  For Canadians, it has been a very confusing debate.  For instance why is there such vitriol south of the border when it comes to giving American citizens universal health care?   At the end just before the vote on the health care legislation Americans polarized on both sides of the political spectrum anguished about the upcoming legislation.  Barack Obama promised change and with this health care legislation he moved the goalposts on life in the United States almost as far as Pres. Lyndon Johnson did with the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

It just so happens that I have spent the last 10 days in Southern California and Arizona.  I must admit that that region of North America is one of my favorite.  If you were to ask me where I’d like to go, I think I pick there over almost anywhere else.  It has the combination of beauty, sun, sand, surf, commerce and lifestyle, which always gives me a buzz.  I could be a Californian.  Needless to say, I think I will have to settle for just visiting.

It just so happens that I get up at about six o’clock in the morning no matter where I am.  So that takes me down into hotel breakfast areas during vacation where striking up a conversation over a bagel is the order of the day.  On two occasions on vacation I had the opportunity to join in conversation with a couple Americans about why they have such trouble with getting universal health care.

The First American I chatted with was a twenty-something black man from Alabama.  He was very soft-spoken and didn’t seem to have a lot to say when I brought up the issue of American health care.  This was happening at a time when the television screen in front of us was resounding with the sound of Barack Obama talking about the health-care legislation.  He told me he had good coverage with Blue Cross of Alabama and he did think it was a travesty that many Americans did not.  He did think it was a big issue but obviously with him he had his ticket written on healthcare.  I think he was in the military but I had no real confirmation of that.  He seemed much more concerned with the number of homeless on American streets especially among servicemen in San Diego.

The second American I talked with was about 70 years old from Portland Oregon.  I was minding my own business this time doing my morning reading on the web when news of the sexual abuse scandal among Irish Catholic priests came on the television.  He suddenly spoke up and asked me if I was Catholic, saying something about this issue really interested him.  I told him that I was not Catholic but that my wife was and he laughed and said it was the same for him.  So after a brief conversation regarding religion, I started asking my questions about the health care legislation.

This older American also had his own health coverage but he had family in both Australia and Great Britain who had their own government universal health coverage.  He explained to me how these relatives told him they could not afford to live in the United States because they had to pay so much for healthcare.  In fact some of these relatives went back to Australia.  He was shaking his head as he acknowledged there must be a better way.  He asked me several questions about the Canadian healthcare system.  At the end of the day our conversation grew so cordial that we ran out of things to say.

You could call those two conversations ambivalent at best.  I would say both those individuals were supporters of the health-care legislation but they shortly were not passionate about it.  That was in contrast to the disparate sides that faced off last week in angry debate over the health care legislation.  In many ways in the United States these debates about health care as well as other social policies have stark divisions.  The country is so large with such a democratic tradition where liberty trumps everything that people with a cause don’t stand down easily.  Maybe that’s why Canadians find it so difficult to understand why some Americans were so against the health-care reform package.  Its just part of their culture.

So we will see what happens now.  The new American healthcare package is not Canadian style health care in the United States.  However, hopefully it will be even better than what we have, because what we have isn’t perfect but most Canadians say it’s close.  Barack Obama said, “Yes we can “.  Kudos to him.  He triumphed on the healthcare file where many other Democratic presidents had trod but couldn’t get it done.