Help me understand the thinking of the American peoples and President Obama’s policies.
As I understand it he is the elected President and one of his main agendas that got him elected was health care. Why is there so much opposition to this health care proposal? Doesn’t “Joe the Plumber” and his family want medical cover?
Now he is being criticized for his speech to schools. How can encouraging kids to go to school listen to their teachers and have respect for their parents be subversive?
I don’t understand. Is the idea of a black president so unacceptable to Americans that they will do anything to make his position untenable? It seems he is not getting the support he should from the people that elected him.
Obama only got 52% of the popular vote (versus 46% for McCain). [random google cite]
In short, while plenty of people voted for him, there are still plenty who didn’t. Furthermore, even amongst those who did, at least some voted solely out of disgust with Bush and thus don’t necessarily agree with Obama’s policies that represent large changes from how things have been done. They just wanted the option that would most quickly bring an end to the Iraq war and Guantanamo.
If that were truly the case, he wouldn’t have gotten elected in the first place.
Bush’s supporters thought they had ushered in a 1000 year period of single party rule in Washington. Bush failed, they failed. It’s taking them time to come to grips with their fall, and some of them have gone a bit wacky.
In my understanding, it was a vocal minority who was protesting the school speech (right wingers). As for the health care issue, that sounds great until the “price tag” starts to rear its ugly head. Same with education, everyone agrees it needs fixing, but when funding starts to be discussed, all of a sudden ideological differences (vouchers, religious school, teachers unions) begin to surface and fracture the unified support shown when it was just generalities.
Except for the racist few who never supported Obama because he is half black, this has nothing to do with race.
Not really; the problem is the outright lunacy on the right ( such as “death panels” and the idea that the old will just be killed off ), and the sense of betrayal on the left that we aren’t going to see any real attempt at reform at all. Just a sellout to the Republicans and the insurance companies. The fact is, our present system is more expensive for less benefit than a UHC/single payer system would be. People who talk about people balking at the “price tag” seem to think that health care doesn’t already cost money. There’s already a price tag.
:rolleyes: Oh, please. Paying with taxes the companies that condemn people to suffering and death for profit isn’t disgusting? But at least you aren’t paying for the care of some poor guy with a “pre-existing condition”, eh? Much better to pay for some CEO’s third mansion.
I thought that “some people” referred to people you hated the idea of your tax money going to instead of the health insurance companies; not to people with different opinions than yours.
I agree. I guess I’m out of the news cycle, so I didn’t hear much at all about these protests, but the current news economic model means that controversy must be inflamed at every opportunity. I think 30 years ago you wouldn’t really have heard of them.
The other thing that I knew was coming was the disillusionment with Obama’s promises that we could have everything. I’m a registered Republican and I wanted W. to try to shake my hand on camera so I could turn and leave. That’s how much antipathy he generated. So there was a built in base to elect whomever wasn’t seen as his appointed successor, which is why McCain didn’t even have W. at the convention.
But Obama sold a bit of a pipe dream in which everyone got candy for breakfast and every night was pizza night, or in the adult version, health care for all and free economic doughnuts with sprinkles. In other words, he told people what they wanted to hear, and he got elected. Now they’re finding out that these ideas cost (again; we never learn).
I mean, right now he’s essentially lying, telling America straight to its face that his plan would not cover illegal aliens while it’s a known fact that the Hispanic Congressional Caucus promised to not vote for its own party’s bill (well, they’re mostly Democrat, anyway) if there were any methods included to verify a person’s immigration or citizenship status. They pointedly used the “nuclear threat” of loudly not voting for something he needs votes on if illegal aliens might get found out and not get included in the system. So while the bill doesn’t state that illegals are covered, in all effect, they are. This “nuance” escapes him. Oh no it doesn’t, he just lied by omission.
Der Trihs: Do you have a link from a (relatively) unbiased source for which system costs less? As noted above, I’m not trying to swallow anything any reputed Pubbies throws around, but I’ve not been following this dogfight lately.
Americans hate paying taxes. That’s the problem every time a new government program gets proposed. People think it’s going to suck and that they’re going to pay for it.
Of course, if we do nothing about our current health care system, people will have to pay more to sustain it anyway. That fact gets lost on some people.
Republican media outlets can’t survive without getting outraged about something at least once a week.
The fact that he’s a Democrat is what’s unacceptable.
I would have to agree that perhaps peoples expectations of Obama were too high, doubt it was entirely his fault but people should also be realistic as to what’s achievable. I’m sure he is not the only leader, in any country, that disappointed peoples expectations.
I can understand controversy with things like gun law and abortion but no matter how hard I try or from which angle I look I cannot see any real downside to a health program for all citizens. Sure the devil could be in the detail but it works in the UK and that is not a communist state. Those who don’t want to be part of the state system can still have their own private insurance cover but those who don’t bother with insurance or have more important things to spend their money on would have cover and not be asked for their credit card before admittance for treatment. (Don’t know if the last part is actually true but it’s a common perception):eek:
With reference to Sarah Palin that she did not want her child appraised (for treatment) by an Obama “Death Panel” What kind of irresponsible statement is that to make to the world press? This is from a (failed) candidate for vice president with ambitions, we are led to believe, to run for actual presidency in the future. Is this the quality of potential leader of the free word the USA has to offer?
On the BBC word news this morning they broadcast excerpts from Obamas school speech and commented that there was “Nothing Controversial” in the speech, yet apparently parents kept their children away from school as they thought Obama was indoctrinating their kids with his political agenda. Was this I wonder before or after they heard the actual speech.
I think everybody agrees education is very important so why is Obama getting so much flack for just encouraging kids to go to school. I can’t believe if any former president or any other politician of any party had made such an “Uncontroversial” speech they would have so much negative backlash.
His election was something of a fluke. He was a junior Senator with only a year on the job when he started running for President.
He got a disproportional vote in the primary elections because he was black and the main election was more a vote against Bush than anything else. On a good day McCain could have been defeated by a freshly painted doorknob.
The unpopular nature of healthcare reform revolves around the reality that elected officials generally have the skill sets of a mad scientist. No expense is spared in an attempt to see how far the laws of unintended consequences can be bent.
Chickenwrangler, you keep asking why there are substantial portions of the American public who oppose anything that Obama does in highly vitriolic terms. Let’s make it clear. These people are a minority of the American public. The support for Obama is probably about the same as at the time of the election last year, which was 52% for him as opposed to 46% for McCain. The percent of the American public willing to make all these weird, exaggerated complaints about Obama is certainly less than 46%, but it’s still pretty high. These complaints are not coming from “the American people,” if what you mean is the majority of the American people. The majority of Americans are still supporters of Obama. The percent willing to make these wildly over-the-top comments about Obama may be large, but it’s not remotely a majority of Americans.
