South African writer says Obama faces challenges on health care system.

Text of report by influential, privately-owned South African daily Business Day website on 28 July

AS US President Barack Obama struggles to build consensus on an overhaul of the American health care system, he could be forgiven for wishing he was working under SA's constitution rather than his own. The system is desperately broken. Our constitution, by enshrining justifiable rights to health care and other basic needs, would give Obama badly needed leverage to get it fixed. The US constitution, admirable though it is in most respects, is rooted in distrust of government and makes the task devilishly tricky by design.

Fixing the system has eluded multiple presidents. The status quo inflicts great cruelty on countless …