It's looking seriously like the United States of America, who consistently touts itself as the free-est of all nations, might finally be catching up with the rest of the western world in terms of universal health care. It's about time.

The Democrats (for the first time in I don't want to say how long) look like they are finally getting their proverbial "shit together" and are coming to the conclusion that they have a mandate to get some kind of health care package to the people, asap, and hopefully during the summer session. In fact, both of the senior members of the House Finance Committee "expressed confidence that they could come together on a bill producing near-universal coverage" and mainly for the reason that the American want and need it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is getting tough on the issue as well. He is telling his fellow Senators to expect long hard days in July and full weeks of work. In fact, the way he phrased that me think that hard work in July may be somewhat of a novelty for our fair Senators.

Mr. Hatch, known for his predeliction for towing the party line, offered his own assessment of a possible bill." If the Democrats go ahead with a purely partisan bill,” Mr. Hatch said, “you saw what happened on Hillarycare, and this will be just as bad.” Nice touch, Mr. Hatch. A truly dick-weed (pardon my French) statement about health-care and yet another opportunity to slam Hilary all on the same go.

According to the same article, "The Democratic bill is likely to include a requirement for people to carry health insurance, subsidies for those who cannot afford it, and a requirement for employers to contribute to the cost."

In 2005, uninsured-cps/index.htm">a report issued by Health and Human Services estimated that there were 45.8 million uninsured Americans and that over half of the uninsured were "likely to be below 200% of poverty." The same report also indicated that many low-income individuals were eligible for Medicaid.

I am guessing that with the current unemployment rate nearing the 10% mark, there are less people with health coverage in 2009 than in 2005. Additionally, many states with coverage for the uninsured (including Washington state) have recently had to cut benefits due to budgetary problems at the state level.

In 2007, after the Michael Moore's "Sicko" hit the big screen, the NYT ran an editorial depicting the United States health care system as one of the worst in the developed word. Although the article mentioned several factors for this, a significant reason was the lack of access to medical care for many people, creating a huge disparity in our system between the haves and have-nots. As an American citizen who would like to feel proud of her country, I hope that Universal Health Care can remedy this situation for some time.