The US president, Barack Obama, spent last week trying to quell furious protests over his proposed healthcare reforms. This included speaking at town hall meetings in the western states of Montana and Colorado.

The president and his secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, are apparently backing down from insisting on a “public option” plan that would compete with private, profit making health insurance plans. Instead a non-profit cooperative organisation offering plans might be on the cards.

The president set out the benefits of the reforms in a New York Times article in which he said that the current system often worked better for health insurance companies than for patients (www.nytimes.com, 16 Aug, “Why we need health care reform”).

About 46 million Americans have no health insurance. But about 80% do, …