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Here Comes The Prof

By Jeralyn, Section Legislation
Posted on Wed Sep 09, 2009 at 05:17:14 PM EST
Tags: health care reform (all tags)
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One of my most frequent criticisms of President Obama has been his style of communicating. He talks in his own world of ideas. Often, I don't understand him or his message. He focuses too much on the "why" and not enough on the "how."

Tonight Obama needs to be concrete. But, apparently, we're going to get the philosophical law professor.

....[H]is speech tonight will "make clear" that he sees [the public option] as "a means to an end, not an end in and of itself," a senior administration official told reporters this afternoon.

Previewing Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress, the senior official -- who the White House insisted remain anonymous -- said the talk was an attempt to shift the focus of the national debate about healthcare back to the goals behind reforms and the concrete improvements reform legislation should bring. People have been "very focused on the trees, and not the forest," the official said. "Tonight's the night when he can describe the forest."

I want a mechanic, who can look under the hood and tell me how to fix what's wrong with my car so I can safely get from point A to point B. Not someone who tells me Detroit needs to build better cars. We all know what the problem is with health care. It's time for the cure.

< Schumer Still Talking Reconciliation | Excerpts From Obama's Speech Tonight >

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    Here Comes The Prof | 5 comments (5 topical)

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    The problem is (5.00 / 1) (#4)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Sep 09, 2009 at 06:09:53 PM EST
    that he doesn't tell us what the plan will cost. He either doesn't know or he knows and doesn't trust the public to agree to the price.

    Neither is acceptable. This bill should be trashed and a new start made on a simple single payer plan.
    Of course that will mean the insurance companies lose. I don't see him bucking them.

    Some excerpts: (none / 0) (#1)
    by steviez314 on Wed Sep 09, 2009 at 05:26:03 PM EST
    Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.


    TPM has excerpts from Obama's (none / 0) (#2)
    by MO Blue on Wed Sep 09, 2009 at 05:28:30 PM EST
    speech. Same old - same old - except he added another tree to the forest. Tonight he is going to talk about medical malpractice reform. link

    But today, the White House indicated that as a gesture of bipartisanship, President Obama would discuss malpractice reform.

    "The president is going to talk about the downside of what many doctors have told him is the practicing of defensive medicine, where doctors because they are worried about this order more and more tests in order to make sure that they don't get sued," Gibbs said on CNN. "That costs our system billions and billions of dollars every year."

    My advise to Obama is to shorten his speech. Just announce that in a spirit of bipartisanship he has decided to let the Republican's write the Insurance Wealthfare legislation and he will get it through Congress.  

    If he's talking tort reform, (none / 0) (#3)
    by shoephone on Wed Sep 09, 2009 at 05:42:09 PM EST
    but not public option, then goodbye Mr. Obama.

    Parent
    As a prof, I can attest (none / 0) (#5)
    by Cream City on Wed Sep 09, 2009 at 06:48:38 PM EST
    that talking over the heads of hundreds of 18-year-olds is not teaching.  It's not communicating.  It's just trying to impress, with big words, people who aren't even in the room.  (I've just spent part of the day grading the work of 18-year-olds as a good reminder of this -- although many have great vocabularies and made my day . . . as I also spent part of the day prepping for a lecture to hundreds of them tomorrow, working not at impressing them but at communicating to and learning with them.)

    There's no reason to not be able to explain big ideas in little words.  It communicates better to students of any age, too, and to the public -- especially at the end of a long day.  And a law prof ought to know how to do it, too; don't law students have to learn to talk to juries, even if they don't end up as litigators?

    Oh, but pictures do help.  Did he spend his day working on PowerPoints, too? :-)

    Here Comes The Prof | 5 comments (5 topical)

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