A Life Preserver for Obama
Published in El Comercio
(Ecuador) on 29 March 2010
by Antonio Navalon (link to original)
Certainly, Barack Obama knew that he had already lost next November's election, and certainly, the Democratic Party knew that its fate was sealed. Because of this, the approval of the reform has political value that exceeds its own initiative. Without this law, Obama’s presidency simply would have been liquidated.
Obama knew that two things could happen: one, that his fate was already decided and that in the end, he would retire with the stigma of being an incompetent ruler. Two, that [Obama] would mobilize the public to support the reform — specifically those of us who give money to insurance companies that protect us while we're healthy and can pay, and ignore us when we are stricken ill.
The good part about this reform is that it exists. The bad part is the law within it. But if Obama had not imposed this initiative, neither he nor the millions of voters who elected him and those around the world who still hope for something from his government, would have a second opportunity.
The law obliges the citizens and legal residents to acquire medical insurance by 2014; it establishes that the insurance companies will not be able to deny sick people; furthermore, the state will sponsor coverage for unemployed and retired people. Businesses are required to provide medical insurance for their workers, and insurance companies cannot deny those under 19 years of age.
Why is the law bad? Because the U.S. will spend three times more on medical attention than any other universal health care system in the world, and it is not universal. It will cost an estimated $9 billion dollars in the next 10 years. Therefore, the system is bad for being onerous. To make matters worse, it makes those who criticize it correct.
It is necessary to differentiate the creation of universal health care and the social change that comes with it from the function of a system that is already inefficient. A good death has become a right of the 21st century, just as in the 20th century when the right was not to be segregated. What happened is that we are confusing a good political solution with a bad technical solution.
The Civil Rights Act was important in the past century not because people would be able to vote, but because it eliminated the possibility that someone, by law or by custom, would be prohibited to vote. Obama has conquered the right to exist politically.
I am convinced that the new law will signify the “rise and walk” of a political surfer named Barrack Hussein Obama, who until last Sunday night was a Kenyan zombie prince; drowned, not in the choppy waves of Hawaii — where he learned to swim — but in a Harvard lagoon where he claimed, “Why not look at me, if what I want to do is good.”
[Editor’s note: The original quote, accurately translated, could not be verified.]
Obama knew that two things could happen: one, that his fate was already decided and that in the end, he would retire with the stigma of being an incompetent ruler. Two, that [Obama] would mobilize the public to support the reform — specifically those of us who give money to insurance companies that protect us while we're healthy and can pay, and ignore us when we are stricken ill.
The good part about this reform is that it exists. The bad part is the law within it. But if Obama had not imposed this initiative, neither he nor the millions of voters who elected him and those around the world who still hope for something from his government, would have a second opportunity.
The law obliges the citizens and legal residents to acquire medical insurance by 2014; it establishes that the insurance companies will not be able to deny sick people; furthermore, the state will sponsor coverage for unemployed and retired people. Businesses are required to provide medical insurance for their workers, and insurance companies cannot deny those under 19 years of age.
Why is the law bad? Because the U.S. will spend three times more on medical attention than any other universal health care system in the world, and it is not universal. It will cost an estimated $9 billion dollars in the next 10 years. Therefore, the system is bad for being onerous. To make matters worse, it makes those who criticize it correct.
It is necessary to differentiate the creation of universal health care and the social change that comes with it from the function of a system that is already inefficient. A good death has become a right of the 21st century, just as in the 20th century when the right was not to be segregated. What happened is that we are confusing a good political solution with a bad technical solution.
The Civil Rights Act was important in the past century not because people would be able to vote, but because it eliminated the possibility that someone, by law or by custom, would be prohibited to vote. Obama has conquered the right to exist politically.
I am convinced that the new law will signify the “rise and walk” of a political surfer named Barrack Hussein Obama, who until last Sunday night was a Kenyan zombie prince; drowned, not in the choppy waves of Hawaii — where he learned to swim — but in a Harvard lagoon where he claimed, “Why not look at me, if what I want to do is good.”
[Editor’s note: The original quote, accurately translated, could not be verified.]