The Challenges Facing Obama and Universal Health Care
Categories: Obama Administration, President Barack H. Obama
Tags: Universal Health Care Obama Administration President Barack H. Obama N.A.B.J. Valerie Jarrett
AP Photo President Barack
Obama, with Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, take questions during a discussion
on health care,
Wednesday, July 1, 2009, at
Les Payne
August 14, 2009
The health care debates plaguing the Democrats are the troubling by-products of the town-hall format the Obama Administration stages to speak directly to the citizenry—and over the heads of entrenched power interests vested in the status quo.
Such public meetings in ’09
Lurking in the town-hall shadows are the genuine nuts and the hard-eyed survivalists who bivouac in their discount fatigues and consider themselves a trigger pull away from blocking a Marxist takeover.
Change in a democracy is never easy.
The Team Obama tactic of appealing to the powerless worked extraordinarily well in assembling its winning coalition for “change” during the ’08 election. It remains to be seen whether the White House can sustain this approach to bring about the fulfillment of the lofty campaign promises.
The central problem is the makeup of the Obama coalition.
The voters that changed
The overwhelming majority of whites nationally, 55-43
percent, favored McCain-Palin. Herein lays the resistance to change—along with
the force of the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress, the military, and the vast
international reach of the corporate
What power the Obama Administration can wield for instituting “change” of the type it promised—health care, economic restructuring and withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan—depends on the cooperative will of other power centers, some quite indifferent and hostile.
Still, all is not lost.
As with the nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, for example, President Obama must get his coalition to remind legislators that, as their voting constituents, they may well exact a consequence for the actions of their representatives.
Constructive engagement is the mother’s milk of change.
And “engagement” was the watchword a senior White House
adviser brought to the 2000-odd journalists gathered last week in
While not exactly the platform that catapulted Barack Obama into the White House, this open contact is a major tenet, as explained by the White House staffer the New York Times Magazine anointed as something of a consigliore to both the president and the First Lady. Such discourses with the public represent a millennium shift at the Executive Branch.
Engagement is as much a signature of the Obama style as disengagement was for the Bush-Cheney administration. It is normal, of course, for voters to return to their routine after an election and allow officials to govern while keeping them generally informed about executive action through public notices and press conferences.
Bush-Cheney, however, broke contact soon after the last dance of their ’01 inauguration ball. And had it not been for terror attacks on 9/11, this White House duo may well have run their operations entirely from the bunkers.
President Obama inherited a nation teetering at the abyss; he has neither the possibility nor the inclination to disengage and retreat from public view. His agenda for “change” in health care--and other campaign promises yet to be tabled--will continue to play against the awesome resistance of the white majority that didn’t vote for him, and the entrenched corporate powers and their mouthpieces bent on seeing the president fail.
The success of President Obama will require him to activate the coalition that got him elected into a state of vigilant activism: this is indeed a daunting new challenge to a democracy evolving still.
While Pres. Obama is "engaging" in public meetings, now, I think Ralph Nader, speaking on DemocracyNow this morning, put it very well when discussing the "leaked" memo (& deal) between the White House and big Pharma: Pres. Obama did not immediately go to the people with his "reform" plan, which has never been articulated, and he has invited the leaders of big health insurance companies several times to the White House, but not single-payer advocates, and practically ignored John Conyers and HR676 (Medicare for All).
The majority of people, via polling,indicate we/they want single-payer/Medicare for All, as do
the majority of doctors and nurses.
Like Conyers (said at a recent meeting), I have been disappointed in Pres. Obama, although I didn't expect single-payer from him at the start, and I still want single-payer. I am one of the 75% or 78% of Jews who voted for Pres. Obama. Nader said Obama has ignored the people who brought him the Presidency, the people who voted for him, who want real health reform, and
single-payer.
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Thanks Les, I agree with your assessment on the Obama administration. I missed you at Newsday and am thankful I found your blog. I also was quietly released by the company I was associated with for 25 years.
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The Repugnant Republicans don't like the results of the 2008 elections, and they are using lies and propaganda in an attempt to stop health care reform introduced by President Barack Obama.
The right-wingers are a dispicable bunch lead by FalseNews, Limpy LimpBaugh, Billy O'Riley, Shat Hannity, and Dumbo Beck. They are a network of liars and warmongers. And it's sad to see so many Americans buy into their stupidity.
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I agree with Mr. Payne's assessment of the powerful forces aligned against a very "centrist" President Obama, but I would note one surprising, glaring omission; that is, the "mainstream" media, principally television, and print, to a lessening degree, as only a shrinking minority of Americans are "readers" these days in any meaningful sense. It can't be said too often that 55% of white folks voted for McCain/Palin, and against Barack Obama: the President has few allies in the military, the Congress (including his own party), and in corporate America, where profits are God- even human life is collateral to their mission. The attractive, intelligent, well-spoken President has always had superficial media support perhaps a mile wide, but just an inch thick. How else does the public get fed so many stories on nutty "birthers", "death panel" liars, ignorant "haters", and the like, and so much misinformation on both health care and economic issues that affect us all? Joseph Goebbels had nothing on these folks. Malcolm X once said, "the media is the most powerful institution on earth- they can make the guilty seem innocent and the innocent guilty- that's power!" His observation was never more true than it is now, as media is playing an active role in frightening the American public away from real health care reform that polls show 75% of them want and need. It seems that the President had only to expand an existing Medicare program. What am I missing? I'm ashamed of President Obama's backing away from the single-payer concept of health care reform to some bland notion of health "insurance" reform, or to a fall-back position of health co-operatives. The U.S. ranks just 38th on the list of countries delivering health care to its citizens and spends almost twice as much per person as governments that deliver far better care. It may well be true that in politics nice guys finish last. If that is so with respect to this President a lot of innocents will continue to be hurt along the way. The clock, as always, is ticking.
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Oh, how I wish I had something to add to this. But, it seems between the two of you--Payne & Mays--you've said it all.
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That's great, I never thought about The Challenges Facing Obama and Universal Health Care like that before.
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thank you
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Good post, but have you thought about The Challenges Facing Obama and Universal Health Care before?
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There is no doubt that Obama has some really big challenges about the health. I am glad that you have shared this information so that people may know this.
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I am worried about what Obama-Care will do to the salary of physicians and doctors. I feel that we will be required to work more hours with either the same pay or maybe even less pay. I hope this is modified before becoming law.
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I like the challenges Obama is taking. He is such a nice personality.
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Obama doing a lot for health care. I really liked that. Wish him all the best!
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I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this great post. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well.
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