Timid Obama Health Care

In the Jon Stewart interview of President Barack Obama yesterday, Stewart appropriately brought up the simple fact that the final version of the Obama health care legislation was very timid. President Obama defended it saying , “It gets discounted because we didn’t get 100 percent of what we wanted, we got 90 percent,” said Obama of the law, who lamented that people tend to focus on the “10 percent” that they didn’t get.

The final Obama health care cost reduction act does indeed implement some good consumer protections. Insurance companies now find it harder to cancel people's health insurance once they become sick. Annual and lifetime maximums in coverage are no longer allowed. These consumer protections could have been required by simple legislation.

The problem with Obama's no-backbone compromising is that his health law did not just give away 10% of the important abuses which needed to be corrected, the percentage is more like 55% or 60%, maybe more.

Many millions of people in America will still remain outside of the health care system. They will be unable to receive proper treatment if they develop a serious disease. This was the great opportunity to implement Universal Health Care. Obama's law still leaves many people with no access to health care. Especially people of modest means or those who are down on their luck. This is absolutely not acceptable.

A great many people were trying to get the government to honestly consider the “single payer” plan or at least the vastly weaker “vigorous government option.” But behind closed doors Obama and his team quickly and completely sold these ideas out to the rich, greedy Republicans. The Obama system siphons away many millions of dollars each year to health insurance companies unnecessarily. Each state and their insurance commissioners have different rules, health insurance policies, costs, etc. This may be the biggest failure of Obama's plan, and it may well be the one which will doom it.

There is also the major question of whether the government can demand by law (with penalties) that people purchase expensive health insurance from private corporations.

President Obama has become insulated from the normal people in America. His plan didn't give away 10% of what we wanted and needed. No, it gave away 55% to 60% of what was absolutely required to make sure that the American Universal Health Care Program would be successful.

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