Health Reform Critical to US Long-term Economic Growth Says Obama.

When President Barack Obama decided to put health care reform to the very top of his list of priorities he knew he was in for a struggle, and it does not seem to be getting any easier as the debate goes along. He is still insistent however that health care reform is a vital part of his administrations plan for long term US economic growth.

Obama still feels that his proposed reforms of the health care system will provide quality, affordable health insurance for all Americans and help ease the financial burdens on both families and businesses as health care costs continue to rise.

"Health insurance reform shouldn't be about Washington politics. It's about American lives, businesses and our future,"he said in his weekly radio address. "Right now, we have a system that works well for the insurance industry, but that doesn't always work well for you. What we need, and what we will have when we pass health insurance reform, are consumer protections to make sure that those who have insurance are treated fairly and those insurance companies are held accountable."

However upbeat he may sound in his speeches though, he must be aware of the battle he still faces going ahead, both from political opponents and representatives of the health insurance industry.

A surprise attack on the President's plans came today from former Alaska Governor and failed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The now private citizen sounded like she was back in full campaign mode in remarks she posted on her Facebook profile.

In her scathing post she wrote "The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

Palin seems to be referring to a rumor that has been around for weeks, based on a possible provision of the bill that would require Medicare to pay for "end of life" counseling . Obama took on that rumor about a month ago at a town hall meeting. He said at the time "Nobody is going to be forcing you to make a set of decisions on end-of-life care based on some bureaucratic law in Washington,"