The breathtaking arrogance demonstrated by President Obama last night was surprising even to those of us who have been critical of his policy mistakes.
David Freddoso exposes President Obama’s arrogance about health care in a column today:
President Obama unwittingly presents the real problem with his plan for reform. Here is a well-meaning government official who so fails to grasp the problem in health care that he can present such absurd oversimplifications and suggest that this sort of thing is the real problem — doctors simply lack the common sense to make obvious medical decisions. President Obama wants us to solve this problem by putting himself and other government officials in charge of rescuing medicine from the medical profession. If medical doctors with a decade of schooling cannot distinguish between good cures and ineffective ones that must be discontinued, then by gosh, we’re lucky that the good folks from the government can.
President Obama thus frames the issue as a false choice between doing nothing at all and handing over to Washington complicated, case-by-case medical decisions that cannot possibly be legislated or dictated by government.
In the same press conference, President Obama went somewhere no president has ever gone — weighing in on a local police arrest for disorderly conduct. The problem? President Obama, who was not there and as far as I know has no law enforcement training whatsoever, concluded the police acted “stupidly.”
Whether it’s foreign policy, domestic policy, NCAA basketball brackets or local police actions, President Obama genuinely believes he knows better than everybody else about everything – a really dangerous mindset for the most powerful man in the world.
From the time George Washington voluntarily stepped out of power after two terms as president, we have come to expect a certain level of humility from our Chief Executive. And for a President so young, so recently promoted from a state legislature and so lacking in real-world experience, this level of arrogance is truly frightening.
Len:
Well said.
I am incredibly disappointed and embarrassed by our “leader” regarding his comments about the Gates situation…I never imagined that these words would be spoken by any public figure, let alone the POTUS administration:
“Let me be clear,” Gibbs said. “He was not calling the officer stupid, okay?”
Really, who is really the racist here? Would he be making the same comments if Gates was arrested by a black man? (I am a minority myself!)
I only hope that he is publicly reprimanded for his comments. Hopefully he comes out with a proper apology…but we know better than to expect that.
We’re only as stupid as we choose to be.
Mr. Freddoso’s remarks are a complete misrepresentation of President Obama’s health care reform proposals. Mr. Obama is not advocating a government takeover and government run healthcare system patterned after the system in Great Britain. He’s advocating reforming health insurance and providing universal health insurance coverage.
Some of us find it shameful that this Christian nation leaves 50 million people without health insurance and thus with little or no access to basic medical care. Whatever you do unto the least of my brethren… If you choose to find an attempt to remedy this national disgrace as “breathtaking arrogance,” that is your choice.
Is it your contention that a government run health INSURANCE program would amount to overriding doctors ability to make decisions? I’d beg to differ. The private insurance industry in this country has done so for decades. The bean counters with degrees in business and accounting and in some cases no degrees at all decide which drugs are covered and which are not, which procedures are covered and which are not. Their decisions are based on money, not on medical training and experience. They have none.
Our private insurance system already rations health care. They weren’t elected, either. It’s willfully stupid to turn a blind eye to the sins of the private insurance industry while scorning the efforts of an elected leader to provide health care to 50 million people who lack it at this time. It’s almost, in fact, arrogant.
Robert, given President Obama’s public statement that we are not a Christian nation, that’s an odd argument to make for President Obama’s health care proposal.
The logical fallacies in your argument are huge. First, the issue is health care, not insurance. There are not 50 million people awaiting health care, as you claim in your conclusion. There is no one in an emergency who gets turned away in America, regardless of ability to pay. So I’m not sure what the crisis is. Many of those who have no health insurance routinely pay for the health care they use, and prefer not to spend money on health insurance. That’s their choice.
In addition, Christianity provides no support for the argument that government should provide universal health insurance. It does provide support for the notion that people who are sick should be cared for — which is why Christians since the time of Christ have cared for the sick, built hospitals and even today give massive amounts of money to medical missionary efforts.
Finally, it is disingenuous to credit as virtuous President Obama’s attempt to ration health care, force those who believe abortion is murder to pay for it, and destroy the freedom of citizens to choose how and when to receive and pay for medical care — and to pay for it by depriving others of the fruits of their labor. You describe as if noble the “efforts of an elected leader to provide health care to 50 million people who lack it …”. President Obama will not be providing anyone with health care. If he is successful, he will be depriving people of their resources through higher taxes and then spending that money inefficiently to force people into a government-run health care system. Nothing noble or virtuous in that.