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Postcard from America: Full steam ahead for financial reform now that healthcare bill is done

Wednesday 12 May 2010 - by Iain Anderson

US policymakers who have until very recently been so totally obsessed with healthcare reform have now been bitten by the bug of financial sector law change – and in a big way.

US television networks that were so obsessed with health have also now switched their attention to the financial debate.

Albeit the added spice of the Goldman Sachs hearings on Capitol Hill have provided them with plenty of material.

How quickly the heat has turned up on this debate.

Many of us had expected the Obama administration’s plans for financial reform to have been up and running in 2009 – riding on the back of the agreements obtained at the G20 in London last year.


However, health reform crowded out any opportunity for real debate.

But now US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the President are focusing the American people on this issue in a way which may well reach similar levels of policymaker and public hysteria.

While all the signs of political gridlock that we saw in the healthcare debate are once again in evidence on Capitol Hill, I do detect that this debate will be somewhat shorter than the year long squabble on health reforms and we should see new legislation in place for late summer.

And then, with new US reforms in place, the spotlight will be firmly on Brussels to up the ante or do the same.


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