by Matthew Abuelo

Created on: September 18, 2009   Last Updated: September 20, 2009

I confess my original intentions for this report was simply to focus on why Republicans will not support any overhaul of the healthcare system but the reality is that the problem is far more than that. That's because, the problem spreads deeper than just Democrats versus Republicans.

The problem reared its ugly head once again during President Barack Obama's healthcare speech. And, no, I'm not talking about South Carolina Senator Joe Wilson's outburst where he called Obama a "liar". Truth is, Wilson is little more than a errand boy for the right wing think tanks that gave us Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay, two men who were found to be so corrupt that they were forced from their respective positions.

The problem is that President Obama backed off, refusing to demand a public option, and showed signs of settling on a so-called not-for-profit "coop", a plan which relies solely on heavier regulations on insurance companies, an industry which has proven to be little more than corporate criminals.

Obama talked of reform but then seemed to wink at the countries' major insurers who would be looking to gain record profits with anything less than a public option being on the table.

While non-for-profit coops have no real measurable history, single payer healthcare systems do. In fact, one could look at the top ranked healthcare systems around the world, and it becomes obvious that we're still huddled in a cave rubbing sticks together while those with the single payer system are well beyond where we are today.

According to a new US Census report the number of uninsured Americans jumped from 45.6 million in 2007 to 46.3 million in 2008. Is it any wonder that we rank number 37 in the global healthcare systems? The top 20 are little surprise:

1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland

The problem is that President Barack Obama seems hell bent on seeking bipartisan agreement with a group you can't even call a political party anymore, only a gang of hooligans absolutely unwilling to budge. They made this clear before Obama even took office.

The Democrats didn't receive one Republican vote in the House of Representatives for the stimulus package, for example. And yet Obama keeps moving closer to what the other side wants and at the same time throwing his own base under the bus.

The truth is that the White House is moving further

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