Finally Obama Fought Back

It's been two month the right kept demonizing the health care reform and the president's respond was less than optimal. As the so called blue dog democrats prepared to sold out the real meaning of the reform and the reformists started to retreat, things looked dimmer than ever. I heard from the radios, even today, that people calling the U.S. health care system "world's best" and the only proof was that somehow foreign folks came to the U.S. for medical treatment. There was a huge gap between information offered by proponents and opponents of this reform. Yet, from my own experience, health care only works if you are rich in this country, or in this world.

Unfortunately, the news media after the speech were only crazy about the poor Rep. Wilson from SC who called the president a liar. Since the people he represents could burst into that kind of classless shout, I guess so could he. The lack of respect and civility for a black president seems to be the wide spreading disease in the right wing extremists. They are hurt, deeply, by the fact that their country was "lost".

Among other comments, I like Michael Pollan's NYtimes Big food vs. big insurance the best. Rarely are people thinking outside the set primeters and trace it to the root of the problem. Aparently, anyone coming from outside of the US could tell there something wrong with American food. It's fat, high calories, ill-nutritious, and bad taste. Moreover, middle to low class whose access to qulity food is limited has to consume a huge amount of cheap bad food. The accumulation of fat is unbelieveable, including myself! Of course, even Mr. Pollan was reluctant to point out that Americans are overworked comparing to the Europeans. And that makes them even more unhealthy.

The discussion on COST can also be extended into other professional areas. In the American system, professionalism is rewarded with extravagant salary. Doctors, Lawyers, Bankers, whoever goes to a professional school and pays the big tuition bill will get a fat job. These profesisons have been effectively mystified to the outsiders and anyone who wants to get professional service is bound to pay these people handsomely. The limit supply of these professionals constrained quality service and raised the bar so high that all the other people would have to foot the bill.

Obama was absolutely right in his speech, and Polanyi was right from the very beginning, that the market would work against itself if left alone. The irony is that without government intervention to design a better playing field, the market would actually be distorted to benefit only a few. It will be a real shame, much bigger than Wilson's blunder, if Americans forsake this chance of reform again.