You can almost see the outline for Obama's next speech: We've already passed the stimulus package (check), SCHIP now has sufficient funding to insure millions of children (check), new procedures for oversight of the bailout are in place (check) but all that's really been done is the issuance of several enormous CHECKS.
As we decipher Obama's leadership style, his own language is giving us hints of his checklist style. Next up...probably something about going green.
But check marks are not evidencing efficient, thoughtful nor effective action and paying our way out of poverty is a process that is doomed to fail for citizens while we hang onto the hope that over several years maybe we too will see a positive result from the billions, nay trillions spent.
Keep it Simple Today: Obama is working from a checklist and we're not on it regarding health insurance. The evidence? These "packages" are all designed to "filter down" to the consumer whether through employment, benefits, or easier borrowing.
So it's time to dust off the book of realities and call Obama on his checklist of "change" promised during the campaign. While his later speeches in his campaign dropped health insurance reform except for his pet project of technology because that was already passed via incentives to physicians for using technology under prior legislation for Medicare, we who voted for him recall well his promise to provide access to affordable and quality health services by way of health insurance comparable to the benefits his family enjoys as federal employees.
Today President Obama is working from a checklist that provides for immediate and urgent steps for companies, for banks, and for government but leaves the consumer in the cold. And this is why a thank you for SCHIP is as misleading and dangerous as the stimulus package...throwing money out for "urgent needs" of business and telling the consumer to wait awhile and see what happens is not leadership, it's campaigning.
