Is The H1N1 "State of Emergency" A Health Care Reform Ploy.

The U.S. president, Barack Obama, has signed a decree establishing a national emergency in light of the swine flu, which has been designed to facilitate action and usher in approval for a state wide aid to cope and deal with an eventual increase in infections.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, its acronym in English) said on Friday that the H1N1 flu has spread now to 46 of th e 50 states of the Union, at this level that is comparable with the common cold but with a higher level of early incidences and with many more infections than what was expected.

The statement adds, "...this decree will allow the health secretary to temporarily remove certain federal requirements in order to allow the country's health centers to carry out emergency actions to deal with H1N1 influenza A in the U.S."

The decree establishing the state of emergency was signed on Friday night by Obama."I have exercised my authority to declare a national emergency in order to be prepared, in case of a rapid increase of disease in the country that can overburden our health care resources," Obama said of his notification to Congress.

The national emergency has been declared in the past for natural disasters like hurricanes and floods.

"It is important to stress that it is a precautionary measure and not a measure in response to a novelty," said one administration official quoted by Reuters news agency, which insists it has been established in the state of emergency before they can suffer an overload of health centers.

The H1N1 virus according to most recent reports has killed more then 1.000 people in the U.S., 20,000 of whom have been affected had to be admitted to hospitals according to the CDC.

It seems evident that There is still a lack of action taken on the preemptive side by the Government. We need to know how to prevent the cause, and have preventative measures in place for these eventualities which will see us more equipped to manage these crisis should they come upon us again.

We need more resources to be spent on research into these epidemics, to avoid widespread hysteria due to ignorance about the new virus. This is a top level priority where all our resources from our fields of technology and science need to be utilised.

Another angle might be that Obama is paving the way for his health care reforms by forcing this satate of emergency and so placing all health care centers under Washington's control.

Either way is it all a case of too little too late?