Obama's Disaster

President Obama has difficulties explaining his politics.

There is a saying in the U.S. that a president’s second term is jinxed. Plenty of examples prove that point: Ronald Reagan was trapped in the Iran-Contra affair. Bill Clinton’s amorous affair with his intern led to impeachment proceedings. George W. Bush was overwhelmed when Hurricane Katrina hit the country. And Barack Obama? His health care reform appears to be turning into the biggest disaster of his presidency.

The comparisons, however, are lame: Iran-Contra was a criminal affair. Clinton-Lewinsky was at best an issue for the prudes. Katrina was a testimony to a president’s arrogance, who was not especially concerned about the African-Americans’ fate in New Orleans. Obamacare, however, is a story about premature promises mixed with the government’s incompetency, which is both embarrassing and incomprehensible. Obama broke away from the most important principle in politics: Don’t promise anything you cannot keep.

For many years Obama created the impression that his health care reform would above all enable millions of people to sign up for health insurance for the first time in their lives and practically nothing would change for those who already have insurance. However, this is not the case. Someone needs to pay for this reform. As it turns out, if no one else, it might be the insured.

The Majority Rejects the Health Care Reform

Obama knew that this would happen — and still repeated his promise until just a few days ago, as he tried to prevent the increasing resistance to Obamacare. The Republicans attempted several times to overturn this law. They even risked national bankruptcy to get rid of it.

They are only able to act like that because the majority of people still reject the reform despite its undeniable advantages. This majority feels that every little change suggested by Washington is an attack on one’s individual liberty. What sounds bizarre to a European is reality in the U.S. and can only be changed if the whole system is overturned. But not even the reformer Obama thinks about that. The president also faces, in addition to this ideological controversy, an unbelievable glitch: The health care website still does not work, even six weeks after launch of the reform.

Obama Is Running out of Time

This failure causes Americans to lose trust in Obama. His popularity is rightly lower than ever before. The president practically has not managed to achieve anything since his re-election a year ago. The House of Representatives has blocked new immigration rights for the 11 million people who are illegally in the country. The gun laws remain as lax as ever despite the fact that several gun rampages have shocked the U.S. in this year alone. Closing down Guantanamo? Oh yeah, two bureaucrats have been appointed. Obama promised, when he took office in January 2009, to unite the divided society and to prepare the largest economy of the world for the challenges of the 21st century. This, however, did not result in more than — admittedly committed — attempts.

Obama still has a couple of months left to avert the disaster. He has to regain the sympathy of those Americans who elected him for the White House twice in a row. If he manages to do so by spring 2014, before the election campaign for Congress heats up, it might be possible that Obama will achieve at least some of his plans. If he fails, he will be hamstrung for his remaining three years in office. Right now, the latter is more likely. The curse of the second term is beginning to take effect.