Keep It Simple Today: We are the American people and those of us who are not governmental employees face a health services crisis. But can this problem be seriously addressed without our governmental employees and representatives surrendering their special status of avoiding the problems of paying for, obtaining and being eligible for health services? I don't think so.
This was a disappointing week as we were distracted with SCHIP, with more features stories on the promise of the first African American President, and more money being thrown at financial institutions (including insurance companies buying small banks so that they can get a piece of the pie). There are ten months until we start thinking about benefits election season and insurance companies are already hard at work in their continuous business of keeping and getting more money and providing less. Obama has callously ignored his campaign promises and the state of reality in which citizens live by sliding comfortably into the government role of ME vs You.
It is never too early to stop steps in the wrong direction. Obama has given into the cheap "fix" of SCHIP at the expense of immediate attention to our next citizen benefits election season. We've heard no encouragement amidst promises of the savings that will be given to doctors and insurers as they become technologically savvy with, of course, no promise that those savings must be passed onto citizens who finance them. We've heard no progress in achieving the lofty promise of making the same health care Obama and his family enjoy available to the rest of us. Obama has not even taken steps to suspend the giveaway that is the governmental health benefits package in comparison to the misery and financial difficulty the rest of us face.
If we are a united country then the special privileges of government employees in terms of their benefits packages MUST be addressed. This issue becomes more critical with the expansion of government jobs to accommodate the technology incentives Obama is supporting. Is it impossible? No. Refer to New York's Mayor Bloomberg this past week.
New York's Mayor Bloomberg is proposing that city government employees contribute towards their own benefits...up to 10% (yes, that's all) and the uproar begins http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/nyregion/31bloomberg.html?ref=nyregion.
Here we advocate the immediate suspension of those unbelievable deals that our governmental employees get in terms of health insurance because there is little hope that our governmental representatives will address the significant issues that have ruined access, affordability and quality in health services until they have a stake in the problem. We've seen it with the "financial" crisis as it spread to enough citizens to finally impact business and draw government attention.
Bloomberg is getting all kinds of criticism for suggesting contributions from city employees of up to 10% of their premium costs. Amazingly, many, according to the article pay nothing.
President Obama this week did a bad job of taking steps in the right direction. Instead of taking immediate action to suspend government employee health perks until he can make strides on fulfilling his campaign promises, he supported SCHIP, that failed government handout used to illustrate "I'm doing something" since Bush. We are smarter than SCHIP this time around.
President Obama better get a grip on his Presidency. First he needs to remember on what basis he was elected and it was the promise of doing away with the politics of George Bush...This week he either suffered a panic attack or amnesia as he becomes a new version of George Bush. Croneyism brings in lawbreakers like Daschel and Geithner who get a pass on their illegal conduct and the reward of a government position...can you say Karl Rove? Second, perpetuating the failed programs of George Bush, including SCHIP, just to say he's done something in the health field is such a flagrant attempt to merely have the ability to put a check mark next to the health crisis that I can almost see the list...health care...SCHIP, check. Our country, I hope has come too far to believe that the health services crisis stemmed from uninsured children. Uninsured children are a result of unaffordable or unavailable insurance for their parents. If you want children to go to school you don't give them the keys to a family car, you give it to the parents. And finally, the distractions of race seem to be dividing the country along the new old lines, African American and White instead of the rich and poor division of the George Bush era (or fundamental Christian and others). Such social division brought us the distraction of the gay marriage Constitutional amendment while the bankers and mortgage brokers and con men lent out more money than they should have to people who could not or would not repay. Such social distraction led to people greedily cashing their rebate checks from the government as the government dug itself into an economic hole that will persist for generations. People talked about some clip of words they attributed to Adam Smith and capitalism as big business used lobbying to influence legislation that benefited themselves.
Criminality, special legislation, and divisive politics are more of the same and Obama needs to show that change he promised. Instead of nonsense (here defined as feature news articles that are designed to feed the gossipy part of human nature), Obama could learn a thing or two from Bloomberg and address the benefits given to or provided for at no or low cost to government employees at the expense of taxpayers whose problems they ignore.
Suspend government benefits packages and replace them with the hard choice options every other American must face or risk failing on one of the key reasons you were put in office to begin with...address health care don't check it off your list.
