A hard work

HEALTH MATTERS: Demonstrators rally against health care reform on the steps of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on March 16 (ZHANG JUN)

While celebrating his long-awaited victory, Obama knows that it has come at a high cost—and that full implementation will face further battles in the time to come.

Obama's health care reform is also, naturally, sowing resentment among wealthier Americans and many interest groups—among them a pharmaceutical industry that has benefited handsomely from the status quo.

Now that he has pledged a tax cut for 95 percent of all Americans, Obama has also voiced his expectation that the upper 5 percent of income earners to pay for parts of his health care reform.

But richer Americans, in many cases, are refusing to go along with the plan. Many wealthy people and, in particular, special interest groups across the board, are protesting that Obama's plan could forestall America's economic recovery.

There are many reasons this well-intentioned effort has run into such difficulty. One has been Obama's failure to more effectively inform Americans of the benefits of his plan.

Equally important has been Obama's inability to deal with attacks from interest groups and the Republicans. When the Republicans took a stand against the reform, Obama soon lost patience, and threatened to force the Democrat-dominated Congress to pass his bill in spite of their objections. This attitude greatly disappointed the Republicans.

Timing has also been an important factor. Obama introduced health care reform at a pivotal time when the financial crisis had already taken a heavy toll on Americans.

Those who did not have medical insurance, in particular, were already under severe pressure. To this end, Obama won considerable public support in choosing to put the well-being of disadvantaged groups atop of his political agenda.

On the other hand, by prioritizing health care reform, Obama lost an important opportunity to address the economy more directly—and potentially create more jobs.

His bearings had international implications, too. While health care reform was mired in difficulties, and his approval ratings kept sliding, Obama turned to various domestic groups for support.

In particular, he decided to impose punitive tariffs on China-made tires to satisfy the demands of the United Steelworkers Union—a move that created a powerful rift in Sino-U.S. trade relations.

But Obama's health care reform has been subtly affecting Sino-U.S. relations in other ways as well. Over the past six months, Obama has undertaken a series of tough measures on China in an attempt to curry political support at home. Since his health care reform is already law, however, Beijing will likely benefit from the fact that Obama now has no reason whatsoever to cling to trade protectionism.

Instead, Obama should rein in the emerging protectionist trend in the United States. A rapid economic recovery is critical to both Obama's political success and America's superpower status. To revive the U.S. economy, he thus needs China's cooperation.

The author is a research fellow at the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences