Obama's basic problem has not changed since the debate began
by
fryde67
09/02/2009, 11:30 AM #
There are good reasons we do not yet trust President Obama on health care, but he can fix that:
(1) He has yet to identify what his plan is. He talks beautifully about what he hopes to do, but has yet to put his plan on the table. Without identifying his plan, he asks us to trust him. It appears that his stated objectives (no tax increase on the middle class, no increase in the deficit, no reduction in benefits or quality of health care, no health care rationing, you can keep your current plan, etc.) are mutually exclusive. If he really can do all he says he can do, he needs to tell us how, in detail, with specifics. Then he needs to help each of us see what his plan will mean to us personally.
(2) Our Federal Government has a long, sorry track record of mismanagement, fraud, waste, and unintended consequences in almost everything they do. Federal bureacracies have a history of dealing imperiously with the citizens they are supposed to serve. Our Congress has a decades-long habit of passing laws which contain hidden provisions that act against our best interests and which we only learn about when it too late. Our elected leaders have shown time after time they cannot be trusted, even to read the bills they enact, let alone make sure the laws are good ones. And whatever they pass into law on health care this year will never, never go away, no matter how bad it turns out to be. The people who are going to the town meetings may be unruly and loud, but they are right to speak up now while they can.
The President needs to stop trying to sell us a pig in a poke and the protesters need to quit shouting and listen to what is being proposed. He needs to quit trying to thrill us with his rhetoric and begin trying to educate us on whatever his plan really is, explaining how each provision he wants to enact will solve the problems he says he wants to solve, and explaining what each provision will mean to us...to our taxes, our current health plan, our relationship with our doctors, our access to services, our care at the end of our lives, our freedom to choose for ourselves, etc. Then he needs to address the legitimate concerns of the protesters, not with soaring, perfectly metered rhetoric but with facts. He needs to explain how this Federal program will avoid the poor management found throughout the rest of the Federal Government. He must quit trying to demonize those who are asking hard questions and opposing changes they do not understand to their satisfaction. Finally, he must have a genuine willingness to modify his proposals to address concerns and reconcile the incompatibilities. In short, he needs to educate and work with the citizens he represents. No more airy assurances and vague generalities.
I will add one modest proposal. I have what I consider to be good health insurance for myself and my family which costs me and my employer, together, about $14,000 per year. If one accepts the figure of 48 Million uninsured, then subtracts the 12 million illegal aliens, which both the President and Congress say they do not want to insure, we are talking about 36 million people, which is about 20 million uninsured families. Each of these families could be given my insurance plan for a cost of about $300 Billion per year. If we redirect the $700 Billion in stimulus funds that have not been spent yet, we can insure all of them for 2 years. No doubt some of the uninsured would refuse the offer, just like some people refuse to enroll in Medicare, so we could probably make the money last three years or more. During that time, we could carefully decide what we want to do next, without the need for having a deadline to get it done this fall. We could come up with a good plan rather than a fast one.
If the President and Congress' objective was to insure the uninsured, why didn't they just do it? Why did they pile on baggage that has become so objectionable to so many?
