Posts Tagged ‘Republican’

Barack Obama’s health reforms have caused a royal scrap in the US and they are now threatening to cause a diplomatic incident.

Sarah Palin has called the reforms evil and said that they would usher in death panels that could determine whether people live or die.

Chants of ‘Just say no’ have echoed around town hall meetings as Congressmen, in favour of the proposals, have faced angry crowds.

And now Republican senators have come out and said that if Ted Kennedy were in the UK, with a free for all Health system, he would be left to die because he is too old to be saved.

For a UK citizen it is hard to see how an issue like this could have exploded in the manner it has. The biggest public campaign in the UK recently was about allowing Gurkha soldiers to reside in the UK, but even that pales in comparison to the furore engulfing the US.

One of the key questions I think is: who is driving this issue - concerned public or wily politicians?

I would say concerned public driven by wily politicians.

For the overwhelming majority of Americans, who have access to healthcare at the moment, the health reforms seem like they would make no practical difference. There would be a shift towards the system that we have in the UK and there would be more health coverage to those who cannot afford health insurance. But it does not seem like quality of service would be affected or tax rises would be very great.

Yet, the public are being fed half-truths and catch phrases that have understandably got them scared. Death panels - obviously would not be introduced; leaving old people to die - obviously would not happen and an EVIL system, WHAT DOES SARAH PALIN EVEN MEAN BY THIS STATEMENT?

Well, like the other Republicans whipping up this saga, she is thinking that finally the messianic image of Barack Obama can be tarnished. The Republicans are blatantly getting their own back for Obama’s success over the last year, which has seen him become the first Black President and enthuse the US with optimism. This is an issue of politics. The Republicans, supported and encouraged by lobbyists from the health industry, are desperately hanging on to the system they know and benefit from and tearing down Obama’s polls in the process. A win, win situation.

More importantly for Republicans grandees like Sen. Mitch Mconnell - Obama has been too much to swallow. He has strolled into the White House with little Capitol Hill experience and announced a flurry of reforms, carried by a troupe of supporters shouting “YES WE CAN”. Well now the old guard are showing him he truth about Washington politics - “NO YOU CAN’T”. Or certainly not easily.

Republicans, angered at his free thinking and public mandate, are showing Obama that US politics does not run as smoothly as he thinks. Great Washington negotiators like Lydon B Johnson were respected on Capitol Hll because their years of experience taught them that in order to change things it takes months of negotiation with colleagues, lobbyists and interested parties.

Obama has attempted to bypass this system by using the public mandate to popularise his proposals. But sadly the Republicans are on to him and fuelled by lobbyists and anti-reformers have whipped up the public into a frenzy. He has learnt a valuable lesson, which sadly may have come at the price of his health reforms: if he wants to be successful a public mandate is not enough, he needs Washington insiders to guide him through and turn his rhetoric into action.