Since his inauguration as US president in January, Barack Obama has spent a lot of time talking about healthcare. Or, more precisely, his plans for fixing it in the world’s biggest healthcare market.

In February, he earmarked $634bn of the federal budget to pay for healthcare reform. Then, earlier this month, he hosted a bipartisan White House “summit” on the issue, where he declared that “there is no debate about whether all Americans should have quality, affordable healthcare – the only question is how?” And the following week, he revoked a ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research because, his campaign said, he believes it “represents real hope to millions of families dealing with debilitating conditions”.