PNHP

WP's Richard Cohen on Obama and single payer

Terror among the rich

By Richard Cohen
The Washington Post, July 9, 2012

I wrote last year that Obama had lost the Hamptons. Nothing has changed. He is roundly denounced for not doing a Heimlich on the economy, for his allegedly socialist ways, for Obamacare, for low employment, for high unemployment, for not returning phone calls, for not asking advice — for being cold, distant and, increasingly, just for being president of the United States. The man, it seems, has to go.

I share some of these sentiments. The economy remains in the doldrums, the occasional good month followed by two or three bad ones. Obama is something of a cold fish, which may be something he cannot help, but he is also a lazy politician, unwilling — not unable — to do the telephoning and backslapping that his job requires.

As for Obamacare, it is both a legal and programmatic mess not because it is even modestly socialist but because it is not socialist enough. A government-run health-care system such as the ones used in virtually all the industrialized world — the so-called single-payer system — would have been the way to go. Instead, we have a system in which private insurance companies will abuse doctors and patients alike in the cause of profit. This, alas, truly is the American Way.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-obama-the-ineffable/2012/07/09/gJQA3mcCZW_story.html

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

Obviously, this quote is being distributed because of the strong endorsement of single payer, a vastly superior model of financing health care when compared to the current “American Way” of using private insurance companies.

Although, in this opinion article, Richard Cohen blasts President Obama for his, shall we say, inaction, he doesn’t include here the difficulties Obama faced from the obstructionism by the opposition party, nor from the inaction of the electorate which suffers from a combination of being uninformed and misinformed, thus unable to advocate effectively for policies that would benefit us all. Of course, the candidate of the opposition party spent the weekend in the Hamptons hauling in millions in campaign donations from the “terrified rich,” thus offering little hope that the November elections would bring us any relief from our political quagmire.

Political leaders do not lead; they follow. We will have to lead by promoting education, coalitions, and grassroots efforts. It will be not be easy, but there is no substitute for massive citizen activism.

WP's Richard Cohen on Obama and single payer

Terror among the rich

By Richard Cohen
The Washington Post, July 9, 2012
I wrote last year that Obama had lost the Hamptons. Nothing has changed. He is roundly denounced for not doing a Heimlich on the economy, for his allegedly socialist ways, for Obamacare, for low employment, for high unemployment, for not returning phone calls, for not asking advice — for being cold, distant and, increasingly, just for being president of the United States. The man, it seems, has to go.
I share some of these sentiments. The economy remains in the doldrums, the occasional good month followed by two or three bad ones. Obama is something of a cold fish, which may be something he cannot help, but he is also a lazy politician, unwilling — not unable — to do the telephoning and backslapping that his job requires.
As for Obamacare, it is both a legal and programmatic mess not because it is even modestly socialist but because it is not socialist enough. A government-run health-care system such as the ones used in virtually all the industrialized world — the so-called single-payer system — would have been the way to go. Instead, we have a system in which private insurance companies will abuse doctors and patients alike in the cause of profit. This, alas, truly is the American Way.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-obama-the-ineffable/2012/07/09/gJQA3mcCZW_story.html

Obviously, this quote is being distributed because of the strong endorsement of single payer, a vastly superior model of financing health care when compared to the current “American Way” of using private insurance companies.
Although, in this opinion article, Richard Cohen blasts President Obama for his, shall we say, inaction, he doesn’t include here the difficulties Obama faced from the obstructionism by the opposition party, nor from the inaction of the electorate which suffers from a combination of being uninformed and misinformed, thus unable to advocate effectively for policies that would benefit us all. Of course, the candidate of the opposition party spent the weekend in the Hamptons hauling in millions in campaign donations from the “terrified rich,” thus offering little hope that the November elections would bring us any relief from our political quagmire.
Political leaders do not lead; they follow. We will have to lead by promoting education, coalitions, and grassroots efforts. It will be not be easy, but there is no substitute for massive citizen activism.