Keynote address to the Civil Society Conference by Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of COSATU, 27 October 2010, Boksburg, South Africa
How can we build on the World Cup success and mobilise our society to build a more egalitarian nation
Comrade COSATU President, Sidumo Dlamini
Comrade TAC Chairperson, Nonkosi Khumalo
Representatives of COSATU, NACTU, FEDUSA and CONSAWU
Representatives of civil society formations
Comrades and friends
Inspired by the African proverb that says ‘If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together', we gather here - as the progressive trade unions, social movements, NGOs, progressive academics, small business and street vendor associations, taxi associations, religious bodies, youth organisations, environmental groups, indigenous peoples' groups and other progressive formations - to say to ourselves that we have the capacity to make a decisive contribution in changing our current situation for the better.
Internationally, globalisation and neoliberal have launched assaults on the working class, which include, but are not limited to: informalisation, flexibilisation, regionalisation of states, deregulation, marketisation, financialisation, and securitisation. The global governance, commercial and trade system is supported by political and ideological institutions, rules and enforcement mechanisms that only broad civil society coalitions have historically been able to challenge successfully.
In South Africa, the GEAR strategy epitomised the dominance of the neoliberal ideology within the leading sections of the government. The neoliberal logic still continues to be dominant, in spite of some talk about a developmental state. Increasingly though it has taken a more crude political expression and there are some emerging elements that tend to perceive the working class and active elements of civil society as merely being a nuisance that must be crushed with the might of the state apparatus.
Today, as we gather here, there is panic in the ranks of the predatory elite, which is a new coalition of the tenderpreneurs. Paranoia elsewhere is deepening with the political elite, convincing itself that any gathering of independent civil society formations to confront our challenges is a threat to them.
Let us right from onset state that we are not an anti-ANC and anti-government coalition. We are not here to begin a process to form any political party, nor to advance the interest of any individual. We have only one enemy - neoliberalism, that has condemned our people to poverty and unemployment. We want to roll back neoliberal advances and struggle for the adoption and implementation of alternatives. Our struggles have to be both defensive and offensive.
We are friends to all genuinely anti-neoliberal and pro-poor and working class political parties that have an undisputable record of struggle to advance our interests as the marginalised societies.
We gather here to say another South Africa is possible! Another world is possible!
On 11 July, just four months ago, all South Africans were basking in the reflected glory of our successful hosting of the best-ever FIFA world Cup. The whole world saw our country at its best - united, efficient, friendly and enthusiastic.
The question we were all asking was - if we can organise such a brilliant event so well, how can we use the qualities that contributed to that World Cup triumph to create jobs, build houses, provide education for our children, launch a free national health service and solve all the other major problems we face.
So we urged the government and every union, civil society formation, political party, business and faith organisation to sign a new declaration in support of a programme to rebuild our country and build a lasting legacy of the 2010 World Cup.
Today's historic conference takes this decision forward. It brings together the people who are best able to meet this challenge - South African civil society and trade unions. The forces we represent here today can - and indeed must - have a decisive say in the future of our country. Our goal must be to forge a strong, united movement for change.
A similar united social movement - of COSATU, the UDF, civic movements and progressive NGOs - played a critical role - alongside the unbanned ANC and SACP - in bringing the racist dictatorship to its knees in those decisive years leading up to our democratic breakthrough in 1994.
The challenges we face today are different but nevertheless very major and require a similar mobilisation of the democratic forces as we saw in those years.
Comrades and friends
In our 16 years of democracy we have achieved major advances. We have a democratic Constitution and many laws, which have given South Africans basic rights, on paper at least, to freedom, dignity and equality.
There have been significant important improvements in the lives of millions of our people. As examples: In 1996, only 3 million people had access to social grants; today the figure is 14 million. In 1996, 58% of the population had access to electricity; today the figure is 80%. In 1996, 62% of the population had access to running water; today the figure is 88%. We have built 3.1 million subsidised houses, giving shelter to over 15 million people.
Despite our historic victories on the political battlefield, however, in the economic arena, many of the problems we faced in 1994 are still very much with us in 2010.
The central challenge is that our economic structure, in particular the distribution of wealth and income, remains largely unchanged, and in one crucial respect - inequality - has worsened, to become the widest in the world, and it also still reflects the racial and gender features of apartheid, with wealth and financial power still predominantly in the hands of white males.
The top 20 paid directors in JSE listed companies earned on average 1 728 times the average income of a South African worker while state-owned enterprises paid CEOs 194 times an average worker's income.
Typical of everything that is wrong with our society today, is this week's announcement that Standard Bank, whose CEO Jacko Maree received a massive R18, 2m in 2009 alone, intends to retrench over 2000 staff, making workers pay the price for their bosses' extravagance and incompetence.
In the 21 months from January 2009 to September 2010, we have lost 1 145 000 jobs, which, as we keep saying means that because each wage earner supports on average five dependents, more than 5.7 million people were thrown into poverty. The latest figures released yesterday reveal that the official rate of unemployment is still rising, even if more slowly, to 25.3%; a further 45 000 jobs were lost in the third
quarter of 2010.
In education - although we have made progress in many areas, such as the improved access to education, in particular for girl children, reduction of the teacher to pupil ratio, the introduction of more no-fee schools, etc. - black working class students are still at the receiving end of an unequal system. We have not transformed the education system in either quality or quantity.
The drop-out rate for children who started school in 1998 was 64%. Our matric pass rate last year was 60.6%. A staggering 70% of (matric) exam passes are accounted for by just 11% of schools, where the mainly white rich can buy their children top-quality education. The culture of learning and teaching has collapsed and many of our schools, in particular in the former blacks only residential areas are dysfunctional. Many of our schools have no libraries and no laboratories.
It is the same story in our healthcare service. The apartheid fault lines persist. While the mainly white wealthy can buy world-class healthcare in the private sector, 86% of mainly black poor have to struggle to get any service at all in an under-funded, understaffed public sector where in some parts patients are told to bring their own bedding and with only Panado available, in filthy hospitals where rights of patients are hung on the wall but not their living reality.
Although we rank 79th globally in terms of GDP per capita, we rank 178th in terms of life expectancy, 130th in terms of infant mortality, and 119th in terms of doctors per 1000 people.
The HIV and AIDS epidemic has worsened our situation, with life expectancy dropping from 62 years in 1992, to 50 years in 2006. Yet we know that in terms of South African Institute of Race Relations survey in 2009, the life expectancy of a white South African now stands at 71 years and that of a black South African at 48.
Comrades and friends
The high levels of poverty and inequality aggravate many other anti-social phenomena which we see increasingly - violent community protests, xenophobia crime, corruption and the collapse of social and moral values. We face not just personal and family disasters but a national catastrophe, a ticking bomb, which has already begun to explode in our poorest communities.
This was our reasoning behind calling this summit. We can't stand there making speeches without developing a programme that will mobilise our society to stop this ticking bomb from exploding. "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." Martin Luther King, Jr.
Corruption in particular is a matter of life and death for our democracy. Day after day we see allegations of trusted public representatives being accused of using their position to enrich themselves and their families. Some allegations may be groundless; most public officials are honest servants of the people. But only full investigations into every allegation will clear the innocent and lead to the conviction and punishment of those who steal from the poor who put them in power. We should give our full support to the government's efforts to bring offenders to justice.
The source of the problem has always been the capitalist system, which is run on the principle of ‘me-first'. Whilst workers' universal slogan is "an injury to one is an injury to all" the capitalist mentality daily practises: "an injury to one is an opportunity to another".
For every official who receives a bribe there is a businessperson who gives the bribe to ‘persuade' the official to use his or her political power to advance private commercial interests. This is the biggest threat to our efforts to establish a transparent and corruption-free government.
It is even worse when the public representatives themselves, or family members, are getting rich from government tenders. The mere fact that they are in business to make money creates an inevitable conflict of interest when they are legislating in parliament, a provincial legislature or municipal council.
The danger always exists that in formulating policy, they will be guided by the impact this will have on their businesses rather than the broader public interest. We have called on our public representatives and union leaders to choose between being people's representatives or being in business.
It is greed that is inspired by the conspicuous consumption of the new elite - the BEE types who blow up to R700 000 on one-night in parties that makes the public representatives not want to live within the means provided by their salaries and rather hefty perks.
The corrupting morality our public representatives is seen in these parties. where I am told in one party sushi was served from bodies of half naked ladies. It is the sight of these parties where the elite display their wealth often secured in questionable methods that turn my stomach. It is this spitting on the face of the poor and insulting their integrity that makes me sick. Next year this elite will not go out door-to-door to get our people to vote. But soon thereafter they will host victory parties to scavenge on the carcass of our people like the typical hyenas that they are.
Our belief is that if we were to confiscate all the medical aids, that most of us here have; if our cabinet Ministers and MPs were forced to take their children to the public hospitals and be subjected to the same conditions as the poor; if we were to burn their private clinics and hospitals and private schools; if the children of the bosses were to be loaded into unsafe open bakkies to the dysfunctional township schools; if the high walls and electronic wired fences were to be removed; if all were forced to live on R322 a month, as 48% of the population has to do, and if their kids were to die without access to antiretrovirals, we would have long ago seen more decisive action on many of these fronts.
Our society in many ways is a very sick society. In addition to allowing these massive inequalities and for apartheid to continue in the economy, we are now sitting indifferent when the new elite is on rampage, humiliating the very motive force of our liberation struggle.
A few kilometres from where we are today hundreds of workers have not been paid for 10 months by their black empowerment bosses in the company called Aurora. Young people in their 20s and 30s have become overnight multimillionaires. A message is being sent out to our students that says:
‘Why work so hard when few correct political-sounding speeches and demagoguery can make you a multimillionaire'.
It says to the genuine entrepreneurs:
‘Why sweat when political connections and greasing the hand of those in political office can make you an instant billionaire?'
We are rewarding laziness, greed and corruption and discouraging hard work, honesty and integrity.
In the process we making our political organisations new battlegrounds where we have replaced the apartheid regime in killing and poisoning those identified as a threat to the march to gain these not-worked-for riches. Look at what is happening in COPE, IFP? Now even Lucas Mangophe is not safe. Look at what is happening in the ANC in some provinces. Look at the number of splits in every political party.Genuineness is fast becoming a rare commodity!
But as the poor and the black people in general, we can't afford to sit on our laurels and do nothing about these conditions. Our dream is that of a mobilised poor that takes its destiny into its own hands.
Why must we allow our schools not to function when we have numbers to flood the school governing bodies, and insist that teachers must be at school all the time, must prepare for classes and must teach for 7 and half hours for five days a week?
Why are we not mobilising to deal with the ill-discipline of our own kids? Why are we not mobilising to change the culture of mainly working class parents and taking an active interest in the education our children? Why have we not mobilised to change the work ethics of our members in the public sector so that they give the first-class treatment to the poor who have no money to go and get better services in the private sector?
Why have we allowed criminals to take our freedom away and return to our townships after 1994, only to rape and murder us daily, one by one, when we have the power of the numbers to drive them out? Why are today allowing a new class of tenderpreneurs to threaten our freedom and impose stinking morality of greed?
Yes we are angry! Yes COSATU is angry! Yes our tolerance levels are running thin! We can no longer just fold our arms and do nothing. Today we are here to say we want our freedom back from the elite and all these rogue elements of our society. Their party must come to an end. We demand a more egalitarian society today and moving forward!
Comrades and friends
The roots of nearly all these problems lie in the failed economic policies adopted in 1996, centred around the misnamed Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy. It led to growth at a snail's pace, higher unemployment and only redistributed wealth from the poor to the rich! It was a policy based on the misguided free-market, neoliberal policies of the ‘Washington consensus', which led directly to the devastating worldwide economic crisis of 2008 and 2009.
The government yesterday announced its new growth path, which aims to create 5 million jobs by 2020, bringing the unemployment rate down to 15%. While we obviously welcome and support such a target, we shall have to study in detail how the government's new growth plan will achieve this.
COSATU has accepted the challenge to produce its alternative strategy. In "A Growth path Towards Full Employment", we set out a path which will transform our economy into one based on the expansion of manufacturing industry and the creation of decent and sustainable jobs. Let us hope we have persuaded government to base their new growth path strategy on the same principles.
But most important is that the strategy must be turned from words into deeds. It will be a tragedy if we miss this historic opportunity to build a developmental state and turn the economy around.
It would be a disaster if the government were to believe that we can continue with the status quo. It would mean condemning another generation of living with no jobs, no money and no hope.
So I appeal to every organisation represented here today to sign the post-World Cup Declaration, which will commit us all to:
1. Remain united behind Bafana Bafana and do everything possible to promote soccer, which remains the biggest and most popular sport, yet is seriously under-developed. We need to develop academies to hone the skills of unknown South African Peles, Drogbas and Ronaldos, who have no opportunity for their skills to be recognised.
2. Bring down the astronomical levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality, which blight our land. Even as we prepare to host the World Cup, jobs continued to disappear, inequalities continued to grow and poverty remain widespread after the World Cup. We need a new economic growth path that will help address these challenges with necessary urgency and speed.
3. Address the challenges of our education system. The 1-Goal Campaign and the Nelson Mandela Day celebrations offer an opportunity to take our international icon's dream to new heights. We call on government to prioritise building and refurbishing schools and to ensure that all schools receive adequate support from the education departments at all levels. We must move beyond the call for all to donate books and build school libraries on Nelson Mandela Day and run for 12 months until every school functions and is a centre of empowerment to build a new generation that can take our dreams to a new height.
4. Unite behind a goal of transforming our health system and implementing the National Health Insurance Scheme. We have to fix our public hospitals and defeat the scourge of HIV/AIDS to build a healthy nation and improve our country's life expectancy.
5. Address underdevelopment and poverty in rural areas. This campaign should address food insecurity and empower our people to use land that currently lies unused, so that people can produce the food they need and escape from their deep levels of unemployment and poverty.
6. Lead a campaign against crime and corruption. We can build on the successes of the World Cup by sending out an unequivocal message that crime does not pay. Corruption is stealing from the poor to feed into narrow elites' selfish accumulation interests. Corruption kills the spirits of the majority, black and white, who want to work hard to build their country.
7. Mobilise to fix the energy challenge the country is facing. We need more action and not empty words to ensure that South Africa moves out of the current crisis. Imagine a day when thousands of activists move door-to-door handing over pamphlets to our people educating them about the benefits of saving electricity.
8. Mobilise to address the looming water shortage crises so that we do not wait for 2025 when the problem will be much more intense. Let us through our people hold the mine bosses who have been allowed after making billions to abandon their now empty mines and pollute our water. Let us defend our environment and keep our country beautiful and natural whilst also developing.
9. Mobilise the working class and educate them to appreciate that no matter how bad living conditions are, there can be no excuse for blaming fellow-Africans and other foreign nationals for the country's and continent's economic failures. Let us do everything possible to prevent a new outbreak of xenophobic attacks in some of our poorest communities. They are not the cause but the fellow victims of our unjust and unequal economic system. Workers and the poor must stand united against the common enemies of capitalist greed and corruption.
10. Lastly and most importantly, address the massive challenges of underdevelopment in the continent. Africa cannot succeed in developing its economies and transforming the lives of our people while it is still ravaged by poverty. Let us defeat the tyrants in Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Sudan and elsewhere whose refusal to vacate their positions and allow democracy means that can be no hope of Africa ever rising to ensure a coordinated effort to defeat under development. Let us mobilise to free our people in Western Sahara from their colonial masters!
These are just some of the many challenges we face. I look forward to hearing the outcome of the commissions and hope that we shall emerge from this conference tomorrow united and determined to build a South Africa run by and for the working class and the poor. I wish you a very successful conference.
Issued by COSATU, October 27 2010
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Showing posts with label healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthcare. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Former Obama Adviser John Podesta
John Podesta, 61, was White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and headed Barack Obama's transition team. He talks to SPIEGEL about Obama's health care reform, the new president's track record during his first year in office and what's plaguing the American political system.
SPIEGEL: Barack Obama has finally managed to push his health care bill through Congress. But can it still be considered a success after the endless debates? Some Democrats are afraid of a disaster at the midterm elections in November because many Americans are skeptical about the reform proposal.
John Podesta: It will cover more than 30 million people with health insurance. We're spending more than 17 percent of our GDP on providing health care, and yet we don't have health outcomes that are anywhere near commensurate with that, particularly compared to European systems. So it is definitely a success.
SPIEGEL: The final bill, however, is very different from Obama's initial proposals. Cost-cutting in the health care sector is no longer a priority, and more competition for the insurance companies won't be introduced.
Podesta: It is certainly better for the Democrats to get something done even if this involved compromises. They have been fighting for better health care coverage for decades, and this bill is a very significant step. Let's also remember that some of the effects of this bill will be immediate. Right now, young people just entering the job market have the highest rate of unemployment. That means they don't have health insurance. Because of this bill, their families will be able to include them on their policies. The president and members of Congress will be heading out and explaining the benefits and I think the more people hear and understand about the bill, the more they will see how remarkable it is.
SPIEGEL: Not a single Republican sees it that way, though. It's a stark contrast to big social reforms in the 1960s, such as Medicare or Medicaid.
Podesta: I don't think you can say that the president did not try as hard as he could to engage Republicans -- and let's remember that the final legislation had over 200 Republican amendments included. But, at the end of the day, the Republicans were unwilling to help, and he was not going to let them prevent him from fulfilling his commitment. There is no doubt that the Republicans will campaign against the bill but, in doing so, they risk becoming simply the party of no.
SPIEGEL: Wasn't that predictable, though? As Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, you know how contentious health care debates can get -- and how fierce Republican resistance can be.
Podesta: Obama was trying to at least reach out to Republicans. But they pulled back again. That surprised him.
SPIEGEL: Many people have a different theory. This president is still popular personally, they argue, but members of Congress don't seem to be willing to follow him.
Podesta: I think that's natural. I saw similar things when I worked for President Clinton. President Bush had success with his party when he was asking them to do easy things. If you walk up to Capitol Hill and say "Please cut everyone's taxes," they'll be very happy to oblige you.
SPIEGEL: Do you think that Obama was too detached in the health care reform process?
Podesta: Quite the contrary: He got too entwined in these negotiations. So the story was all about the sausage-making and not about what he was trying to deliver and how it fit in with the other things he was trying to get done. The public lost a sense of what the big story was. He stopped making the case to the country about how his different reform elements fit together.
SPIEGEL: So he was more of a prime minister than a president?
Podesta: He has got to stop being the prime minister. Obama needs to project the strong power he has as the US president and use his cabinet more effectively.
SPIEGEL: Was it a mistake for Obama to go for the "Big Bang," to try several big reforms simultaneously in his first year?
Podesta: No. The analysis he proceeded from was that unless you could get these strong foundations by attending to the things that needed reform in the US economy, you couldn't have strong sustainable growth. What perhaps surprised the people in the White House was how long the health care debate took and how little real support there was from the Republican Party.
'Obama Already Has a Lot of Authority'
SPIEGEL: Why is it so hard for the Democrats to get their act together? The majorities, in a way, are there. But we are seeing a lot of infighting within the Democratic Party.
Podesta: Obama represents the mainstream of the Democratic Party; there are outliers on both the left and the center-right. And the US process is one of persuasion rather than a parliamentary discipline that comes in a European system. He has got to convince the members of Congress. They're independent actors. They run for election and reelection on their own.
SPIEGEL: What are some of the lessons Obama could draw from the Clinton years? He could face a drubbing in the midterm elections similar to the one Bill Clinton experienced in 1994.
Podesta: He will lose seats but not Congress. However, my advice for him is: Work all the levers of your power. Don't just view your job as working with Capitol Hill to pass legislation. There are 2 million people who work for the president of the United States. Look at clean energy: It needs legislation, but Obama already has a lot of authority to do things that he could be doing. And I think that's what Clinton did. He did it when he had Democrats in power. He did it when we had Republicans in power.
SPIEGEL: Could the lessons include firing staff at the White House? There is much talk right now about the divide between pragmatists, such as his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who want to get things done and idealists, such as chief strategist David Axelrod, who would like to preserve the message of change.
Podesta: We can agree on one thing: The White House staff is overexposed. I don't think we need any more profiles of any more staff people. I don't think that helps the president, and I think they know that as well. I think the president still has confidence in his team. I would be surprised if, at this moment, he shook the staff up in a substantial way.
SPIEGEL: But is there a real divide at the White House between idealists and pragmatists?
Podesta: There are people like Rahm Emanuel, who -- by style, by temperament, by experience -- is focused on getting things done. Some of the other people who campaigned with the president are encouraging him more to not compromise on the things that he ran on. But, ultimately, these are the president's decisions.
SPIEGEL: Many Americans feel that Washington is "broken." They see standstill in institutions like the Senate. Does the US need to have a debate about the American political system?
Podesta: What we now have is essentially a parliamentary system in which every vote is a vote of no confidence, with no majority rule. That's not a prescription for good governance. It is the result of use and misuse of the filibuster, the instrument to stop any debate with 41 votes in the Senate. (Editor's note: For debate on a measure before the US Senate to be closed, thereby allowing a vote on it to take place, three-fifths of the senators -- usually 60 of 100 senators -- need to call for the debate to be closed. If the minority party has 41 or more senators, it can delay or prevent a vote by extending the debate indefinitely in a so-called filibuster.)
SPIEGEL: That hasn't always been the case.
Podesta: I spent the earlier part of my career working in the Senate and, at that time, filibusters were rare. They were used for issues that senators felt were really aimed at fundamental constitutional principles -- like civil rights. They happened, but when people actually filibustered, they stayed in the Senate around the clock and debated.
SPIEGEL: Now senators simply announce their intention to file for a filibuster, which is often enough of a threat to block legislation.
Podesta: That's why it is now used on virtually everything that comes to the floor of the Senate, including even the ability to confirm people to serve in public office. Nominees for key positions in government are being held up with threats of filibusters, and I think that is dysfunctional. In the middle of the financial crisis, Obama could not appoint the leading civil servants in the Treasury Department for more than a year because of such opposition.
SPIEGEL: Has the partisanship in Washington gotten worse since the Clinton years?
Podesta: It's worse today than it was then. We were able to get some things done with bipartisan support.
SPIEGEL: Why is that?
Podesta: Because of the redistricting of our constituencies, the most partisan representatives now tend to occupy large chunks of districts, particularly in the House of Representatives. Another factor is the "permanent campaign" most parliamentarians need to engage in now. The influence of money is also to blame, as well as the polarization of the media. The Americans in the middle are desperately looking for somebody to fix the system. They have shifted back and forth in recent elections because they're so frustrated with the incapacity of government in Washington.
'There's Too Much Money in Politics'
SPIEGEL: New groupings, such as the Tea Party movement, thrive on that. They are against big government above all else. Right after the financial crisis, government seemed to be more popular in the US. A Newsweek cover read: "We Are All Socialists Now." That feeling has evaporated quickly. Why?
Podesta: I don't think the American public was ever in favor of a kind of social democracy on a Scandinavian scale. What surprises and disappoints me was that the failure of markets and the failure to regulate the financial system have not been internalized by the public. They don't seem to have realized that the counterpoint to the greed and excess that those markets produced is a strong government.
SPIEGEL: Has that been internalized by the White House? We can see the massive influence of money in Washington. How willing is Obama to attack the system?
Podesta: Obama has been willing to attack it. But his message gets confused because, even in attacking the system, you have to create a basic level of financial stability, so that the whole economy doesn't go over the cliff. The public saw that all the bailout money went to the very firms that created the mess. It confused them. But the question is: Did we have a different option?
SPIEGEL: Many Americans, though, feel bitter that money also buys access in Washington. Well-connected industry groups shower politicians in Washington with billions of dollars each year.
Podesta: We've been after this for 30 years, and it just gets worse and worse. Obama put in very strong ethical provisions to try to push out the influence of lobbyists. But, today, on health care, on financial regulatory reform, the lobbying business is still a growth business.
SPIEGEL: How would you discuss that with your own brother Tony, who runs a very successful lobbying firm here in Washington?
Podesta: He does what he does. I think there's too much money in politics -- and the influence of lobbyists -- and this need for raising tremendous amounts of money through special interests in order to run campaigns -- is corrosive.
SPIEGEL: Let's look at foreign policy. Many observers say Obama has been even less effective on the global stage than at home.
Podesta: I disagree. He established quite a good record, particularly for a first-year president. He took a difficult decision in Afghanistan. He kept support for that amongst his NATO allies. He got the Pakistani government more aligned to go after certain elements of al-Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistan and used drones in the region efficiently to hunt down terrorists. The pressure to increase sanctions on Iran is an ongoing process, but it's still one that he's played intelligently.
SPIEGEL: But there is a lack of any progress in crucial areas like the Middle East.
Podesta: True. Obama's effort there has not produced anything that looks like it's got a coherent, end-game, positive result associated with it.
SPIEGEL: And he has no genuine friends among global leaders in spite of his popularity abroad. He does not seem to care about building close relationships.
Podesta: His style is certainly different from George W. Bush, who wanted to be liked and really developed deep personal relationships. But if you have the wrong foreign policy and good personal relations, you end up with bad results. And if you have the right foreign policy, a strong team to implement it, and thinner personal relations, you're more likely to have very good results.
SPIEGEL: Europeans were also dismayed that Obama did not push for more progress on climate change at last December's summit in Copenhagen.
Podesta: I'm a glass half-full guy when it comes to climate change.
SPIEGEL: How so?
Podesta: The dialogue running up to Copenhagen, particularly on the European side, was sort of unrealistic. It didn't align by largely working off the fulcrum of Kyoto. The Copenhagen framework aligned the global system and led to the emergence of sort of basic negotiation means. It will allow the big developing countries to participate in a clean energy reduction strategy. You did have substantial commitments made by China, by India, by Brazil, by Indonesia in advance of Copenhagen. They're on board.
SPIEGEL: But the US, with its huge emissions output, still needs to lead.
Podesta: Global progress depends on the United States' continuing to make progress on reducing its emissions. That ultimately requires legislation to pass the Senate.
SPIEGEL: That means a change to the famous American way of life. In the current political environment, is it possible to ask Americans to make sacrifices? The numbers supporting climate change legislation are dropping.
Podesta: That's not true. The numbers who think that climate change is a top priority problem and even the numbers who think that climate change is caused by human activity are dropping. But the support for strong intervention to change the way we consume and use energy and move to a clean energy future hasn't changed. You use the word "sacrifice." I use the word "opportunity."
Interview conducted by Gregor Peter Schmitz
URL:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686218,00.html
SPIEGEL: Barack Obama has finally managed to push his health care bill through Congress. But can it still be considered a success after the endless debates? Some Democrats are afraid of a disaster at the midterm elections in November because many Americans are skeptical about the reform proposal.
John Podesta: It will cover more than 30 million people with health insurance. We're spending more than 17 percent of our GDP on providing health care, and yet we don't have health outcomes that are anywhere near commensurate with that, particularly compared to European systems. So it is definitely a success.
SPIEGEL: The final bill, however, is very different from Obama's initial proposals. Cost-cutting in the health care sector is no longer a priority, and more competition for the insurance companies won't be introduced.
Podesta: It is certainly better for the Democrats to get something done even if this involved compromises. They have been fighting for better health care coverage for decades, and this bill is a very significant step. Let's also remember that some of the effects of this bill will be immediate. Right now, young people just entering the job market have the highest rate of unemployment. That means they don't have health insurance. Because of this bill, their families will be able to include them on their policies. The president and members of Congress will be heading out and explaining the benefits and I think the more people hear and understand about the bill, the more they will see how remarkable it is.
SPIEGEL: Not a single Republican sees it that way, though. It's a stark contrast to big social reforms in the 1960s, such as Medicare or Medicaid.
Podesta: I don't think you can say that the president did not try as hard as he could to engage Republicans -- and let's remember that the final legislation had over 200 Republican amendments included. But, at the end of the day, the Republicans were unwilling to help, and he was not going to let them prevent him from fulfilling his commitment. There is no doubt that the Republicans will campaign against the bill but, in doing so, they risk becoming simply the party of no.
SPIEGEL: Wasn't that predictable, though? As Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, you know how contentious health care debates can get -- and how fierce Republican resistance can be.
Podesta: Obama was trying to at least reach out to Republicans. But they pulled back again. That surprised him.
SPIEGEL: Many people have a different theory. This president is still popular personally, they argue, but members of Congress don't seem to be willing to follow him.
Podesta: I think that's natural. I saw similar things when I worked for President Clinton. President Bush had success with his party when he was asking them to do easy things. If you walk up to Capitol Hill and say "Please cut everyone's taxes," they'll be very happy to oblige you.
SPIEGEL: Do you think that Obama was too detached in the health care reform process?
Podesta: Quite the contrary: He got too entwined in these negotiations. So the story was all about the sausage-making and not about what he was trying to deliver and how it fit in with the other things he was trying to get done. The public lost a sense of what the big story was. He stopped making the case to the country about how his different reform elements fit together.
SPIEGEL: So he was more of a prime minister than a president?
Podesta: He has got to stop being the prime minister. Obama needs to project the strong power he has as the US president and use his cabinet more effectively.
SPIEGEL: Was it a mistake for Obama to go for the "Big Bang," to try several big reforms simultaneously in his first year?
Podesta: No. The analysis he proceeded from was that unless you could get these strong foundations by attending to the things that needed reform in the US economy, you couldn't have strong sustainable growth. What perhaps surprised the people in the White House was how long the health care debate took and how little real support there was from the Republican Party.
'Obama Already Has a Lot of Authority'
SPIEGEL: Why is it so hard for the Democrats to get their act together? The majorities, in a way, are there. But we are seeing a lot of infighting within the Democratic Party.
Podesta: Obama represents the mainstream of the Democratic Party; there are outliers on both the left and the center-right. And the US process is one of persuasion rather than a parliamentary discipline that comes in a European system. He has got to convince the members of Congress. They're independent actors. They run for election and reelection on their own.
SPIEGEL: What are some of the lessons Obama could draw from the Clinton years? He could face a drubbing in the midterm elections similar to the one Bill Clinton experienced in 1994.
Podesta: He will lose seats but not Congress. However, my advice for him is: Work all the levers of your power. Don't just view your job as working with Capitol Hill to pass legislation. There are 2 million people who work for the president of the United States. Look at clean energy: It needs legislation, but Obama already has a lot of authority to do things that he could be doing. And I think that's what Clinton did. He did it when he had Democrats in power. He did it when we had Republicans in power.
SPIEGEL: Could the lessons include firing staff at the White House? There is much talk right now about the divide between pragmatists, such as his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who want to get things done and idealists, such as chief strategist David Axelrod, who would like to preserve the message of change.
Podesta: We can agree on one thing: The White House staff is overexposed. I don't think we need any more profiles of any more staff people. I don't think that helps the president, and I think they know that as well. I think the president still has confidence in his team. I would be surprised if, at this moment, he shook the staff up in a substantial way.
SPIEGEL: But is there a real divide at the White House between idealists and pragmatists?
Podesta: There are people like Rahm Emanuel, who -- by style, by temperament, by experience -- is focused on getting things done. Some of the other people who campaigned with the president are encouraging him more to not compromise on the things that he ran on. But, ultimately, these are the president's decisions.
SPIEGEL: Many Americans feel that Washington is "broken." They see standstill in institutions like the Senate. Does the US need to have a debate about the American political system?
Podesta: What we now have is essentially a parliamentary system in which every vote is a vote of no confidence, with no majority rule. That's not a prescription for good governance. It is the result of use and misuse of the filibuster, the instrument to stop any debate with 41 votes in the Senate. (Editor's note: For debate on a measure before the US Senate to be closed, thereby allowing a vote on it to take place, three-fifths of the senators -- usually 60 of 100 senators -- need to call for the debate to be closed. If the minority party has 41 or more senators, it can delay or prevent a vote by extending the debate indefinitely in a so-called filibuster.)
SPIEGEL: That hasn't always been the case.
Podesta: I spent the earlier part of my career working in the Senate and, at that time, filibusters were rare. They were used for issues that senators felt were really aimed at fundamental constitutional principles -- like civil rights. They happened, but when people actually filibustered, they stayed in the Senate around the clock and debated.
SPIEGEL: Now senators simply announce their intention to file for a filibuster, which is often enough of a threat to block legislation.
Podesta: That's why it is now used on virtually everything that comes to the floor of the Senate, including even the ability to confirm people to serve in public office. Nominees for key positions in government are being held up with threats of filibusters, and I think that is dysfunctional. In the middle of the financial crisis, Obama could not appoint the leading civil servants in the Treasury Department for more than a year because of such opposition.
SPIEGEL: Has the partisanship in Washington gotten worse since the Clinton years?
Podesta: It's worse today than it was then. We were able to get some things done with bipartisan support.
SPIEGEL: Why is that?
Podesta: Because of the redistricting of our constituencies, the most partisan representatives now tend to occupy large chunks of districts, particularly in the House of Representatives. Another factor is the "permanent campaign" most parliamentarians need to engage in now. The influence of money is also to blame, as well as the polarization of the media. The Americans in the middle are desperately looking for somebody to fix the system. They have shifted back and forth in recent elections because they're so frustrated with the incapacity of government in Washington.
'There's Too Much Money in Politics'
SPIEGEL: New groupings, such as the Tea Party movement, thrive on that. They are against big government above all else. Right after the financial crisis, government seemed to be more popular in the US. A Newsweek cover read: "We Are All Socialists Now." That feeling has evaporated quickly. Why?
Podesta: I don't think the American public was ever in favor of a kind of social democracy on a Scandinavian scale. What surprises and disappoints me was that the failure of markets and the failure to regulate the financial system have not been internalized by the public. They don't seem to have realized that the counterpoint to the greed and excess that those markets produced is a strong government.
SPIEGEL: Has that been internalized by the White House? We can see the massive influence of money in Washington. How willing is Obama to attack the system?
Podesta: Obama has been willing to attack it. But his message gets confused because, even in attacking the system, you have to create a basic level of financial stability, so that the whole economy doesn't go over the cliff. The public saw that all the bailout money went to the very firms that created the mess. It confused them. But the question is: Did we have a different option?
SPIEGEL: Many Americans, though, feel bitter that money also buys access in Washington. Well-connected industry groups shower politicians in Washington with billions of dollars each year.
Podesta: We've been after this for 30 years, and it just gets worse and worse. Obama put in very strong ethical provisions to try to push out the influence of lobbyists. But, today, on health care, on financial regulatory reform, the lobbying business is still a growth business.
SPIEGEL: How would you discuss that with your own brother Tony, who runs a very successful lobbying firm here in Washington?
Podesta: He does what he does. I think there's too much money in politics -- and the influence of lobbyists -- and this need for raising tremendous amounts of money through special interests in order to run campaigns -- is corrosive.
SPIEGEL: Let's look at foreign policy. Many observers say Obama has been even less effective on the global stage than at home.
Podesta: I disagree. He established quite a good record, particularly for a first-year president. He took a difficult decision in Afghanistan. He kept support for that amongst his NATO allies. He got the Pakistani government more aligned to go after certain elements of al-Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistan and used drones in the region efficiently to hunt down terrorists. The pressure to increase sanctions on Iran is an ongoing process, but it's still one that he's played intelligently.
SPIEGEL: But there is a lack of any progress in crucial areas like the Middle East.
Podesta: True. Obama's effort there has not produced anything that looks like it's got a coherent, end-game, positive result associated with it.
SPIEGEL: And he has no genuine friends among global leaders in spite of his popularity abroad. He does not seem to care about building close relationships.
Podesta: His style is certainly different from George W. Bush, who wanted to be liked and really developed deep personal relationships. But if you have the wrong foreign policy and good personal relations, you end up with bad results. And if you have the right foreign policy, a strong team to implement it, and thinner personal relations, you're more likely to have very good results.
SPIEGEL: Europeans were also dismayed that Obama did not push for more progress on climate change at last December's summit in Copenhagen.
Podesta: I'm a glass half-full guy when it comes to climate change.
SPIEGEL: How so?
Podesta: The dialogue running up to Copenhagen, particularly on the European side, was sort of unrealistic. It didn't align by largely working off the fulcrum of Kyoto. The Copenhagen framework aligned the global system and led to the emergence of sort of basic negotiation means. It will allow the big developing countries to participate in a clean energy reduction strategy. You did have substantial commitments made by China, by India, by Brazil, by Indonesia in advance of Copenhagen. They're on board.
SPIEGEL: But the US, with its huge emissions output, still needs to lead.
Podesta: Global progress depends on the United States' continuing to make progress on reducing its emissions. That ultimately requires legislation to pass the Senate.
SPIEGEL: That means a change to the famous American way of life. In the current political environment, is it possible to ask Americans to make sacrifices? The numbers supporting climate change legislation are dropping.
Podesta: That's not true. The numbers who think that climate change is a top priority problem and even the numbers who think that climate change is caused by human activity are dropping. But the support for strong intervention to change the way we consume and use energy and move to a clean energy future hasn't changed. You use the word "sacrifice." I use the word "opportunity."
Interview conducted by Gregor Peter Schmitz
URL:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686218,00.html
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Saudi Arabia plans to privatize large parts of Healthcare Sector
SAUDI ARABIA. Saudi Arabia plans to privatise large parts of its healthcare sector in a bid to meet surging demand, the FT reported Wednesday quoting a senior government official.
Dr Manar Al-Moneef of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority said the Saudi authorities planned to privatise or outsource the management of the 218 government-owned hospitals.
The government finances more than three-quarters of the healthcare industry, which was “unsustainable given population growth projections, as well as spiralling healthcare costs,” he said.
He said the government was planning "a massive overhaul with many opportunities to build a leading competitive sector".
"Authorities throughout the Gulf were gradually moving towards being a regulator of medical services rather than a provider", said Khaled Jaouni of Dubai based Ithmar Capital.
“Within the next five years, the healthcare sector will grow exponentially in the Gulf,” said Mr Jaouni, whose group plans to invest up to AED3 billion (US$817 million) in the industry.
McKinsey has estimated a fivefold increase in healthcare costs in the Gulf to almost US$60 billion, led by costs of cardiovascular diseases.
####
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
