31/05/2010 Professor : Mrs. Favresse | Maxime Cozien & Raphaël Iscar-Gutierrez | Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense | obama’s Health care reform |

Introduction
In many developed countries, health care is provided by the state as a free service for its citizens.
In exchange, people have to pay a fixed fee. This is a model where each citizen pays for others even if they don’t need any health care.
It is a system based on the solidarity which is common in European developed countries.
In response to this European socialism, America is the leader as one of the most powerful countries in the world with its capitalistic model.
Since its creation, America has always been THE land where individualism is at the top of its citizens’ minds.
The American “self-made man” picture illustrates the thought that anyone who becomes wealthy by his or her own means, regardless of how he or she achieved that wealth, is a hero.
We can also find this way of thinking in the health care system as Americans are afraid to pay for others.
Although it is the richest country in the world, there are social disparities, particularly in access to health care coverage.
As the first black president was elected on November 2008, a whisper of change could be heard throughout the United States of America.
Indeed, on March 23rd 2010, the biggest change in America’s health care history was made when Obama’s Health care reform was signed into a law.

Problem:

How has Obama been able to make a large reform on health care in a country where individualism is prized and where politics are more focused on the struggle between Democrats and Republicans than serving the population’s interests?

I. Health Care & US: A historical difficulty added to a political system dysfunction?

A. quick health care history

The story between the United States of America and health care did not begin on November 2008 when Obama was elected.
It started in 1912, when former president