Is Mutiny Coming?

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Interestingly enough, the shine on our new President's new suit is starting to fade... and now as the work starts to get hard, and expectations don't necessarily match with reality, the mutinies are starting to occur.

This time, it's on Health Care.

(story below)
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/10/house.health.care/index.html

Of course, Obama ran in 2008 on making healthcare more accessible, affordable, etc. for all Americans. So, it should come as no surprise that a bill is making its way down the halls of Congress aligning with his agenda. It's caused a lot of debate as of late - partly because it is a fairly agreesive move to get the government more involved with (and potentially take over) the system.

Interestingly enough, the latest pushback is coming from fiscally conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats. They're saying it's too extreme, and it appears that they are going to use their voting block to negotiate some of the socialistic aspects of this plan down (or hopefully out).

I'm all for this... while I do think that health care needs to be available and effective, it can't be free. I mean, people go to medical school and study like madmen for many, many years and spend thousands in tuition to be qualified to do what they do. It's crazy that we would actually make their skills, especially those that are highly specialized, into a commodity with a simple vote. It just defies logic. There are definitely ways to take unnecessary costs out of the system, but I don't believe that orchestrating a government run system akin to Canada is necessarily the answer.

I was talking to a friend of mine last weekend about Obama, and how he as a conservative voted for him because we did need a change in the direction and tone we saw in our government. While I voted for McCain, I do agree that the tone of our government left a lot to be desired, and I do think the new President has brought a little more civility to our debate. This, I commend him on. However, I do not believe that those of us that are conservative voted for him to see many of our economic (banks, car companies) and social systems (health care) taken over by the Federal government.

I think that Obama's taking a huge risk in enacting this change, when the change that he promised that we bought into was the change of direction and tone on the world stage (which I believe that he's done a decent job with so far... esp. with Robert Gates at the helm). What I think (and hope) will happen is that in 2010 the voters will once again move the government to the center by taking away some (or all) of Obama's congressional support and we the voters force him (like we forced Bill Clinton in 1994 and George W. Bush in 2006) to bargain and build coalitions with the opposition. All this, of course, will be played out in next year's versions of the nasty campaign ad :-). Good times.

Until then, I'm going to enjoy having a private health plan... until otherwise notified :-)

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