by Saurabh Pal

Created on: April 07, 2009   Last Updated: April 09, 2009

To be able to compete in a global economy US needs to do address several things both on the domestic front and the international front. Now healthcare and energy costs are only two of the top issues on the domestic front and addressing them would only sort two of the issues facing America. What happens to other issues of financial improprietary, stopping environment degradation and generating employment opportunities.

More than tackling the issues, it is how we address them that is important. In spite of the recession and precarious economic condition, energy is not a priority. For the next twenty to twenty five years, we will continue to depend on high energy guzzling means like gasoline and fuel inefficient cars. In spite of all the efforts that President Obama is making about getting the automobile industry to its past glory, it will take enormous efforts to get out of the mess.

The mistake that the President, as well as the Congress, is making is that they are looking to develop fuel efficient cars using alternative fuels. But what we need is a radical new thinking. We need ways to survive without depending too much on private transportation. There needs to be a viable means of public transport. We lost this opportunity in the last fifty years when the country failed to create a strong and dependable network of mass transit transport criss-crossing the entire country. Instead the country got manipulated by the automobile lobby who ensured that long distance train connections or other means of transport were never established. This meant that Americans would be dependent on the Detroit band for their transportation means. This lead to the situation that Americans would continue to buy and use inefficient cars produced by the likes of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. People grew totally dependent on them for their transportation needs. The government never cared to create or encourage a well connected network of trains or buses that would have created an alternative to the powerful car industry.

The same is happening on the healthcare front. What the government is trying to do is to get the fifty million or so uninsured people into the healthcare umbrella. But the main problem with the healthcare system is the prohibitive cost of healthcare. Is it any wonder that more and more people are flying to countries like India, Thailand or China to do dental jobs, heart surgeries or other costly treatments. So what needs to happen on the healthcare front is that the high costs must come down. Healthcare needs to become more affordable and every citizen of the country needs to be able to get a basic level of healthcare. Till all this happens, all efforts to tinker with the healthcare will be futile and may prove counter productive.

But again, addressing these two issues alone will not help the US to get competitive in the global economy. These would only lay the foundation on which US will have to rebuild itself and make itself competitive amidst the other nations.

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