I’ll be honest. It’s been a tough few days for my morale on health insurance reform.
First, word of Rahm Emanuel’s ‘don’t attack Democrats’ dictum came out on Friday. Then, word that the Obama administration had been party to a closed door deal with big Pharma.
And right now I’m not sure what the White House really wants? Real health care reform or watered down co-ops that they will call health care reform.
The Huffington Post has a bunch of video clips of Candidate Obama saying thing like…
"First, we’ll take on the drug and insurance companies and hold them accountable for the prices they charge and the harm they cause… And then we’ll tell the pharmaceutical companies, ‘Thanks but no thanks for overpriced drugs’. Drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in Europe and Canada and Mexico. We’ll let Medicare negotiate for lower prices. We’ll stop drug companies from blocking generic drugs that are just as effective and far less expensive. We’ll allow the safe reimportation of low-cost drugs from countries like Canada."
I don’t feel the battle for reform is over but I’m very worried that the Obama administration hasn’t done what Candidate Obama promised us in leading the charge for health care reform – including negotiating on C-SPAN.
How do YOU feel?
Hi Lee (are you the Lee S. of Amiga graphics fame?)
Anyway, you have a reason to be discouraged by what Obama does… and you are citing the right reasons.
The facts are these:
1 - Obama is a lawyer… and that is, in my experience a universally bad thing unless you are in legal trouble. In all other respects…. bad bad bad. Their professional job is to get results, regardless of truth. To a lawyer, the end justifies the means. Win at all costs.
2 - Obama is a politician. He’s a politician’s politician. Did you (or anyone) really think that he was somehow different?
3 - Obama speaks well… (or should we say “reads well”) and that is a danger. You can spot when a poor speaker is bending the truth (or telling an outright lie), but a good speaker can sell you your own shirt off your back.
Obama has spoken for years on how the Clinton’s blew it by doing health care behind closed doors, and over and over again said he would include “all Americans” by holding health care negotiations on C-Span.
He lied. There is no other way to put it.
And worse… he is now hiring marketing firms to “sell” the American people.
So far… the Obama administration is not transparent as was promised, rather it is being manipulative. No inclusion… just salesmanship.
Being discouraged is a reasonable response to what is happening.
Check out the posts at http://www.deeplyimbedded.com, also discouraged by Obama. etc.
And read two page short story Roland’s Orange Cart linked on the right side of the blog, Health Care nightmare as it is.
Hi Lee my old friend! And yes, Mike, this is “the” Lee from Amiga LightWave/Toaster fame! I’ve known him (on the phone anyways and as a fellow modeler) since the early days of the Amiga.
I agree with Lee, I also think we got had by Obama’s campaign. Even before this Health Care Crap came out. When he campaigned “you can’t have change with the same old people that have been messing up Washington for the last 30 years”……and goes and picks Clinton, Biden, Daschle……what change? We have the same ol’ same ol’ biggest partisan lobbyists in DC…..
Besides, Gov’t Ownership of Cars, Banks and then Health is NOT cool, they can put everyone else out of business and monopolize….
Here in Buffalo, NY, Dems have been running commercials saying to support raising taxes on the rich to “Make Them Pay Their Fair Share”. Our taxes are already one of the highest in the country. And I am not rich, far from it. But as far as I know, the top 5% of the rich pay for 90% of the taxes already……and if they can’t have the American dream, they can’t hire anybody and pay them well.
And what is with the almost 40 Czars? Bush had 1 for Homeland Security after 9/11, Reagan had 1 for Drugs (damn!), but almost 40 in 6 months? They are not accountable to anyone but the President, no one knows what they get paid, and the “Health Care Czar” is plotting with the Big Pharm as Lee suspects……what ever happened to “Checks & Balances”? This may be the most dangerous path to take as a Democracy….
Maybe we need the best parts of the Dem and GOP to merge and become the Independent Party…..maybe that is the only way the people can take back their own
destiny and make America Democratic again. If I wanted to live in a socialist society, I would have stayed in Europe where I grew up. None of this came up in Obama’s Campaign….I fear we were misled.
But then again, Obama promised change. He didn’t say whether it would be the good kind or the bad kind…..
See the David Tours America
http://www.deeplyimbedded.com
I want single-payer but I know that has a snow cone in hell’s chance.
Instead, I’d like to see heavy fines for insurance companies that drop paying policy holders, I would like to see insurance companies fined if they deny people with pre-existing conditions and there has to be a limit on how much they can increase the rate every year.
Aside from this health care reform, we need to try to get people in our country healthier. We need to eliminate the subsidies that make it cheaper to grab a Big Mac rather than a head of broccoli or asparagus.
I am definitely discouraged and it has proven once again that the squeaky wheel gets the grease and that lobbyists have such a hold on SO many people in Congress. It’s sickening and disheartening.
I’m hoping we will call for single payer in a few years but so much damage will have already been done to our economy and the spirit of our nation.