Looks like the US might get a public health care system slightly worth the name after all

Surprising positive news from North America: the US supreme court has upheld the "Obamacare proposal" with one minor change. A summary of the legal argumentation and outcome is here. The ruling itself is here.

The minor change is that states may refuse to join the Obamacare expansion of health insurance coverage but keep a bit of federal money for medicaid. However, this will mean that states that join the expansion will ijn the long run be more attractive for people to move to and live in, and it seems plausible to speculate that in the long run also sceptical states will eventually accept the entire Obamacare package.

Now, Obamacare is certainly not a perfect public health care insurance system, but it is clear that from the perspective of human well-being, equity and long-term societal and communal security it is far better than what has been available so far.

President Obama's own reaction can be seen here:

Tweets from the 11th World Congress of the International Association of Bioethics in Rotterdam

I should, I realise, have posted about this already this passed tuesday. I'm (with due permission from my doctor, employer and health insurance officer) currently attending the 11th Work Congress of the International Association of Bioethics in Rotterdam. This biennial event is the largest and most well-established conference in my general field of speciality. I'm usually tweeting from the sessions I attend - although today (thursday) is my last day. The hashtag is #IAB2012 and this will lead you to tweets by a few other people as well. The homepage of the conference is here.