Our government systems work somewhat differently. But over here, for bills that require money to be spent on them, need the senate committee's approval. If the senate & house of representatives are different political parties, then the senate can hold the government in power to ransom. That's happened over here several times. The worst scenario was in the 1970's with Whitlam's Labor government. He had some fantastic ideas, but could not achieve anything because the liberal party who held the power in the senate would not approve of any spending on his ideas. Whitlam ended up quitting.

It's certainly strange seeing our AUD worth more than the US dollar. In previous years our dollar was usually worth US $0.80-$0.90. Presently AUD $ 1.00 = US $ 1.10 (spaced out to beat censor lol)

We have HealthCare here. This is similar to what Obama wishes to introduce. Many countries in the world have a similar system, but USA is behind the times. I can imagine many people see the system as socialistic with negative thoughts for that reason. I am aware the USA pharmaceutical companies 'hate' our system with a passion. They cannot dictate prices, cannot advertise medicines on TV that over here require a doctor's prescription first. I have no doubt the USA pharmaceutical companies are among the loudest & influential attempting to stop the new health system being introduced.
Hilarious. The part about the history I mean.