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and on the 7th day he passed health care reform

Posted By: The Abstract Analyst
Filed Under: Opinion on April 1, 2010

Honesty: NOT the Washington way!

Everyone already knows that there will be at least 1000+ articles / opinion pieces about the Health Care bill, as many as the pages in the bill.  By now everyone has heard Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk show host and future feature of Street Verse’s own Kick Rocks Series (promo!) say that he will move to Costa Rica….(or not) upon the passing of this bill.  Rather than sit here and claim I’ve read the text book err bill or act like I understand it, aside from a few points, I’m just going to look at the process to some degree that Democrat Mos, Republican Luc…errr President Obama went through to get the bill passed, which I think speaks to the issue of American politics as a whole.

During his campaign, President Obama ran on a platform of change, a platform of hope, and a platform of not doing this the ol’ Washington way.

He also made healthcare reform one of his key pillars.  I can honestly say that before healthcare reform was a trending topic on twitter (#hcr) or before it was a bill that caused reactions more extreme than those exhibited to the prospect of going to war (to make “them” pay!), The healthcare bill was pretty good when it first started. It addressed multiple problems.

But in typical Washington fashion, (something President Obama said he wouldn’t do) the bill was altered, changed and bloated. It grew to a couple of thousand pages because of side deal after side deal–payments to LA just because, to CT for hospitals among others–as a means to getting the bill across. In typical American political fashion, something good and valid gets mutated to satisfy everyones ‘personal interests’ — a process of mini power plays to prove that every senator has some measure of authority.  This pissing contest typically hurts the spirit of the bill and the people most impacted by it. Yet, politicians have ways of spinning it so that the voters only hear the relevant parts and allow the pol’s to get re-elected.  This is the way it has always been and it seems like there is no end in sight for this practice. We have been down this road before…and the last time we saw ‘Mission Accomplished’, the real battle was far from done…

About the Author

MBA graduate and observer of media, politics, sports and every thing absurd...