Subject: DJP Update 12-27-2009: Two newspaper articles -Times of London & NY Times – about health system reform; LAGNIAPPE – Twitter tip and radio interview
Below are examples of Freedom of the Press. The first article is a view from across the ocean. The second is from the woman who knows how to turn a phrase and frequently offers critical commentary against Republicans. If time permits, go to the links and read the entire articles.
Article from the Times of London
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6968494.ece
From The Sunday Times December 27, 2009
Horse-trading over health scars Obama
The deals struck to win support for his key healthcare reform have damaged the president as the fall in his popularity ratings shows
Tony Allen-Mills in New York
(Some Excerpts)
Yet it was clear last week, as the president flew off to Hawaii for his Christmas break, that while the Clintons put defeat behind them and cruised to two full terms in the White House, Obama may never recover from a victory that has demolished his bipartisan aspirations and which his critics have already judged pyrrhic.
It was a bizarre feature of the US healthcare debate that the longer it went on and the closer it came to a successful outcome, the lower Obama sank in opinion polls. By the time the last $100m incentives had been dished out to wavering Democratic senators last week, Obama was languishing at his lowest approval ratings of the year, with one poll showing that only 32% of Americans still think the healthcare plan is a “good” idea.
—-
Amid the 2,000 pages of small print added to the Senate’s healthcare bill are all manner of promises and pay-offs to senators protecting the special interests of their home states. Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who has led his party’s discussions of the bill, defended the deals with wavering senators as “the art of compromise … that’s what legislation is all about”.
——
The biggest beneficiary of what one columnist dubbed “Harry [Reid]’s favour factory” was Senator Ben Nelson, a moderate Nebraska Democrat who insisted his vote was “not for sale”, but who later overcame his doubts about abortion and other issues when a clause worth $100m to Nebraska hospitals was belatedly inserted.
Other big Democratic winners included Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who successfully argued for subsidies that apply mainly to her home state; Senator Christopher Dodd, whose home state of Connecticut may land a new university hospital; Senator Bill Nelson, who won special exemptions for Florida pensioners; and Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who fought off potentially punitive tax penalties.
All this presented Republican critics with an arsenal of prospective abuse that was threatening to resonate much more loudly with voters than Obama’s solemn insistence that history is being made.
“This process is not legislation. This process is corruption, declared Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican. Senator Lindsey Graham talked of “backroom deals that amount to bribes”.
——–
It was the crushing collapse of the Clinton health reforms, derided as HillaryCare, that largely contributed to the so-called Republican “revolution” of 1994, when conservatives led by Newt Gingrich and his Senate allies seized control of both houses of Congress.
The Democrat losses persuaded Bill Clinton to turn to Dick Morris, a shrewd political operator who steered the president away from the left of his party and encouraged him to focus on traditionally Republican virtues such as a balanced budget and toughness on crime.
By the time Clinton delivered his state of the union address in 1996 he was able to declare the “era of big government is over”. He was re-elected at a canter later that year.
Yet Obama has so far shown no sign that he plans a similar U-turn. Although polls show a substantial majority of voters remain suspicious of “big government” – an elastic term that most associate with higher taxes – the president insisted in interviews last week that he was “very enthusiastic about what we have achieved”.
——
… may distract the president from what many voters perceive as his greatest failing – an economic recovery programme that has sent the federal budget deficit soaring yet has failed to generate many new jobs.
Despite encouraging signs of a return to growth, a backlog of home repossessions and continuing restrictions on new debt continue to dog much of working-class America. Obama insisted last week that the financial rescue package he forced through at the start of the year was “the most important thing we did”, yet continuing rows over bankers collecting their Christmas bonuses have undermined the president’s claims to have introduced meaningful change.
Perhaps most dangerously, the healthcare feuding has made a mockery of Obama’s repeated pledges to mend what he used to call “the broken system in Washington”.
Obama owed his primary victory over Hillary Clinton in no small part to his depiction of the former first lady as one of “the Washington players [who] play the same old Washington game”. In his stump speech he routinely declared: “It’s time to end business-as-usual in Washington so we can bring about real change for the American people.”
Obama insists that his healthcare reforms will transform the lives of millions of Americans. Yet the empty tables of the Senate dining room suggest a different and more ominous change.
———-
New York Times – Maureen Dowd’s column December 26, 2009 – A must read article. Question: Does she really have a brother named Kevin?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/opinion/27dowd.html?_r=5
(article access is free but one must sign in with an ID of your choice or email address and pick a password. And browser must be set to accept cookies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/opinion/27dowd.html?_r=5
(SOME EXCERPTS)
December 27, 2009
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Oh, No! Kevin’s Back!
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
As my brother Kevin headed off to Christmas Eve Mass in the Maryland suburbs, I asked him how he thought the first year of Barack Obama had gone.
He didn’t have to pray long over that one. “Fine,” he replied, “if you like unmitigated disasters like the Hindenburg and the Redskins season.”
If it’s Christmas, it must be time for my conservative brother to take over my column and turn it a blazing shade of red.
—–
The Republicans, of course, got exactly what they deserved in 2006 and 2008 mainly because they acted like Democrats. Deficit spending and sex scandals are not a good recipe for success.
But by forcing through a government takeover of health care, the auto industry and the banks, the president and his Congressional henchmen have brought us in a time machine to Russia 1917. These massive changes have been done in secret and along bullying, straight party-line votes.
It is stunning to watch rich lawmakers driving their own expensive cars off the cliff and signing on to such a socialist agenda. In dismissing the tea parties and pushing through plans the American people obviously don’t want, they have made the fatal disconnect between the representatives and the represented.
President Obama continues life in the H.O.V. lane, fawned over by the press and the crowned heads of Europe. In between apologies, the president should have reminded those pompous blowhards that without our interference, they would all be speaking German.
—-
President Obama should remember that Icarus tried to fly to the sun because, as he said, “it is the only thing in the universe that can match my brilliance.” How did that work out?
Here are some reflections for 2009:
To President Obama: Thank you for saving the Republican Party and for teaching all of us that too much of anything is a bad thing.
To Bill Clinton: You did too much work on Northern Ireland for the Nobel committee. Next time, do nothing.
To Harry and Nancy: “The Twilight Zone” once had an episode where the town got the exact opposite of what it wanted. Farewell, Harry!
To John McCain: Thank you for your chivalry in banning Palin attack dogs – including my sister – from the campaign plane.
To Sarah Palin: Keep up the good work. Anyone who annoys Keith Olbermann that much is a friend to all of us.
To Glenn Beck: Thanks for being the only journalist interested in stories that used to win Pulitzer Prizes.
To Al Franken: So, 250 years of Senate tradition trashed. Stuart Smalley would have done better.
To Desirée Rogers: Get back to the gate. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson can’t get in.
To the Salahis: Thank you for showing us that shame has no bottom.
To Valerie Jarrett: So much for the Olympic Village in Chicago. Whoops.
To Chris Dodd: The only thing lower than your polls is your mortgage interest rate.
To Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen: The military should be more interested in the men and women who serve than in celebrating diversity.
To the Democratic senators: Go last next time; the bribes are much bigger.
To Sheldon Whitehouse: You, senator, are an idiot.
To Dick Cheney: You, sir, are a patriot. Thanks for firing back.
To President Bush: Thank you for your dignity. Did you really start the plague in the 14th century? Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
To Hillary: Who knew how much you would be missed?
To Al Gore: A global warming conference in the middle of a Copenhagen blizzard is not a good visual.
To Max Baucus, Eliot Spitzer and John Edwards: Party on, dudes.
To John Ensign, Mark Sanford and David Vitter: Don’t party on, dudes.
——–
LAGNIAPPE
Now putting some DJP Updates on Intrepid Resources Website. You can access from Home Page, www.intrepridresources.com
Also learning and using Twitter each day. Great tip from Barry Eisenberg, Executive Director of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM), about decreasing size of Website links so that there can be more words in 140 character limit of Twitter’s Tweet. It works well.
Here is what Barry advised:
—–
Donald,
I notice a lot of your twits have long URLs-typical when linking to news items.
To shorten those, take (copy) the URL, go to “tinyurl.com” and paste it in. It will give you a much shorter version, freeing up more time in your message for personal text. ——–
DJP comment: Here is an example. I did a North Carolina radio interview on December 16, 2009 and it is at: http://carolinatalknetwork.com/2009/12/dr-donald-j-palmisano-md-jd-facs-on-health-care-reform/ But you can go to the URL conversion site and shorten it to: http://tinyurl.com/yhe87m5
Both will take you to the radio interview on health system reform and the latter link gives you more space for the discussion on Twitter which limits to 140 characters including spaces. If time permits, listen to the interview and note last part of interview deals with medical liability system.
——–
Drop by http://twitter.com/djpNEWS and sign up for DJPNEWS to get tweet alerts that may not make it into DJP Updates. The health system reform debate is not over! Stay informed. Stay active.
Finally, hard to believe the Saints lost in overtime to Tampa Buccaneers! Final score 20-17. Saints had a 17 point lead. Second loss in in a row. The Tampa Buccaneers deserve praise for that win.
Best wishes for a healthy and Happy New Year!
Donald
Donald J. Palmisano, MD, JD
Intrepid Resources® / The Medical Risk Manager Company
5000 West Esplanade Ave., #432
Metairie, Louisiana USA 70006
504-455-5895 office
504-455-9392 fax
DJP@donaldpalmisano.com
www.donaldpalmisano.com
www.onleadership.us
This DJP Update goes to 2181 leaders in Medicine representing all of the State Medical Associations and over 100 Specialty Societies plus some other friends.
You can share it with your members and it has the potential to reach 800,000 physicians.
To join the list, send me an email stating “Join DJP Update” To get off the list, state “Remove DJP Update”. Best to put in Subject line so I can do immediately.