In the history of avoiding responsiblity in spite of restating the old "the buck stops here" mantra, a LITTLE bit of caution before acting seems called for. We jail people for ignorance of the law that results in breaking the law, we blame people for not foreseeing the consequences of their negligent actions, we have special categories of people who are not held accountable because they have insufficient mental capacity for such responsibility...except politicians?
Yesterday the President was at his best, talking about he couldn't put Afghanistan or health care on the back burner, but the all or nothing approach is becoming a tremendous liability to his Administration. While he capitalizes on charisma, the proof is in the pudding and this I'm honest and I'm outraged by the dishonesty of people taking advantage of our ill-formed policy thing is not working especially with the news about Chris Dodd.
Here's the rub: Coming across as stupid--not knowing what happened as the heat for ongoing problems is directed at different Administration soon to be fall guys like Geithner who's becoming the brains behind the problems is just what Bush did by evolving into the apparent front man for Cheney or Rove. Ultimately the folksy, I don't know anything that's why I hire experts argument wore thin as it became clear that Bush could not be THAT stupid to have not known about ANY of the shenanigans of his pals.
Best advice: Start KNOWING, every citizen in this country knows that the "deal" was no deal because it didn't put documented, enforceable, and extensive expectations on the corporate receivers of dollars, so why not the President? The rush to legislate is not good and acting as if this haste is going to pay off in the next twenty years is absurd.
Our health reform is NOT going to help consumers if the bulk of the money goes to technology, specifically Electronic Health Records because:
1) The unreliability of such records means that consumers will NOT be able to avoid duplicate services by different providers who will not rely on such records because of the risk to themselves
2) The system is REWARDING with pay physicians and pharmacies and providers who go online which will only benefit INSURANCE COMPANIES
3) Insurance companies are NOT addressing their own waste, bad investment and exploitive practices but instead have grabbed onto the let's continue making demands of consumers to support ourselves.
For today, consumers have enough notice, President Obama is going to let these costly consequences occur and will then say let's not look back but look forward, re elect me. This is nonsense. He needs to take steps to match his rhetoric with reality and right now, it's not happening.
