Obama – Government Run Health Care Not Essential to Reform – Victory For The Court of Public Opinion

Average Citizens Lined the Block at Health Care Forum in N.C. - images American Elephant

The Associated Presshas reported that Barack Obama “is willing to embrace insurance cooperatives over a government-run plan as the White House faces mounting opposition to its broad overhaul of the nation's health care system.” The article goes on to say that the President did so by bowing to pressure placed on the administration by “Republicans” and “fiscally Conservative Democrats.” One has to have lived in a virtual vacuum to come up with that explanation for the administrations sudden change of heart.

For the month of August, Democrats and Republicans held “Town Hall Meetings” or “Health Care Forums” in their districts, which were unusually well-attended. The attendees of these meetings were painted as “mobs”, pawns for Insurance Agencies, organized by “Conservative Groups”, and so on – that said, the majority of attendees at these meetings were there because they did not want a private payer system – and they came from all walks of life and all political affiliations. Although pundits from the right and the left ratcheted up the rhetoric during the few weeks, it was the American people who were determined to have their voices heard. Yes, there were some organized groups that attended these meetings, among them the 9-12 groups (which are bi-partisan and conservative) as well as ACORN and members of the SEIU, that said, most of those attending did so for the opportunity to voice their opposition to the proposed bill, in a constitutionally correct manner, and many were without party affiliation or unenrolled.

Union Members Protesting For Universal Health Care -image AFLCIO

The media charges and charges made against these protestors by members of Congress vis a vis, “mobs”, etc., only added fuel to the fire, and made these average citizens more determined. The basic theme of these “meetings” appeared to be “We hired you – you work for us” and with the modified threat “You can be voted out.” (Which one can believe played the largest role in the final decision.)
This was a victory of the American People, but more importantly, a victory of the form of Government which we have – a Republic, whereby, citizen representatives are chosen by the people to do their bidding. (U.S. Constitution)

Historically, there have been few times in this nation’s history where individual citizens were so opposed to a U.S. government course of action that protests of this magnitude have taken place, and in each of these instances, the government changed course (either immediately and or/through the process of the election of new leadership). It will be interesting to see; now that these individuals have found a voice, how they will react should they feel that strongly about other government policy in the future.