...President Obama 'distances' self.
Well, that was quick - I only started beating on that one in the previous post!
(behold, the power of MD!)
So, just to recap that particular "Economy Stimulating Insertion":
The provisions, included in both the House and Senate versions of the bill, would allocate at least $3 billion toward the “the utilization of an electronic health record (EHR) for each person in the United States by 2014.” In addition, another $1.1 billion would be allocated to establish a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.
Riiight - the "Council".... and what would they do again?
This council would serve as an umbrella group for all federal health programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, S-CHIP, and veterans’ care, with 15 members from various federal agencies making determinations and recommendations to the secretary of Health and Human Services about health care needs and cost-effective treatments.So, 15 different federal agencies making decisions on whether your treatments are necessary and sufficiently cost-effective... what could there be to worry about there?
And I didn't even know about the "veteran's care" part, before.
Hmmm... Thinking about all those US servicemen coming back from the Sandbox with truly grievous and extensive injuries - the amount of surgery, reconstruction, prosthesis and therapy...
I wonder how a council of 15 federal bureaucrats applying the EU's cost-efficiency-matrix (reference post below) would be likely to affect them?
Now - if you search through the recesses of your memory, into the dim past of 'the Presidential Campaign', you'll recall that Barack Obama made Universal Health-Care one of his platform planks.
President Obama was even quoted as referring to health-care as a "Right".
That being the case, it would seem perfectly reasonable to expect that he would have felt quite strongly about this particular provision - not wanting to (in the words of his chief-of-staff) "let a crisis go to waste."
So naturally, when faced with the recent criticism of this particular piece of the "Stimulus Bill", he stood up personally and defended is importance and propriety, ... right?
When asked whether President Obama had insisted that the two health care provisions be part of the final stimulus bill, spokeswoman Psaki said, “We haven’t specified that."
Hmm. Or not.
Now why do you suppose that is? It seems like it would have been the perfect demonstration of 'standing by his beliefs' or 'putting his money where his mouth is' or even 'reaffirming priorities he espoused during the election'.
Why would he have an aide distance him from something that is so important to him?
What do you think?
- MuscleDaddy
MuascleDaddy is onto something here. This clever Obama distancing act can only play out so long before the audience decides to call him on it.
ReplyDeleteWhere Clinton saw only opportunism in 'testing the wind' with the public before making decisions, the Obama-meister decides after the fact whether he was the author of legislative components or whether he never knew about the features contained in legislation.
This creative distancing act won't last for long if people wonder whether the president is behind a poicy or not. Obama wants the socialist agenda to move forward but will pace that forward movement on his terms, blaming the Speaker of the House or anyone else he wishes along the way.
Clever character that Kenyan...oh sorry...born in Hawaii (I forgot).
Nice blog, MD. Thanks for inviting me over. You have some very interesting articles and information here. I've bookmarked it so I can visit daily. Thanks!
ReplyDelete