People are talking about Obama's decision to offer waivers to mega-corporations for the new healthcare legislation like gossip hour at a gay tea party. It's everywhere. And people can't make sense of it. PR to the rescue! Maybe.
The president has found himself in a PR pickle. It's fair to speculate this is one of the most hated presidents in office in some time. His decline of popularity during the first year in office was worse than any other president in recorded history, just under 50 percent. I guess this objective statistic would suggest we have a hideously incompetent monster leading us...if one actually rests faith on the judgment of our American people. As offensive, or insulting this may seem--I am not comforted by the flagrant display of ignorance I see every day....CBS News wrote a great article talking about the expectations and inevitable "failure" Obama was set up for since the beginning. I don't need to remind people what the 43rd administration left behind, insurmountable to tackle. So with the gumption to take on this preposterous task.... Obama’s options were....what??
His decision for mandatory healthcare was refuted by big corporations like McDonalds that proclaimed they would "re-evaluate their plans" regarding their employee health insurance if they did not get a waiver. Obama's choice was literally between raising healthcare costs, or no health insurance at all. So he offered exemptions that will allow 30 companies to pay below the minimum annual benefit in low-cost insurance plans.
There are two perspectives to this situation. McDonalds and the United Federation of Teachers represent a portion of the 1 million people, the very worthy and deserving people, which would lose their insurance. Small business owners are furious that they didn't get a healthcare waiver as opposed to mega-corporations. But it's not about them. It's about the little person, the worker, the one that's earning the business owner's profit for them. Secondly, the congressional election is approaching in early November, and with such steep popularity, there's a chance Obama will be politically overrun by Republicans. All effort is futile. Sigh....
His PR guy probably has more gray hair and frown lines than Obama. How do you deal with this? Infuriate 1 million people that lost their insurance they rightfully need, or continue to piss off all of the people that have always been blogging and tweeting "nobama" hate messages, while they sit on their golden toilet made of full-coverage PPO plans. There's no way around it, you're absolutely going to enrage legions of people. I congratulate his decision, sticking to the ideals and priorities he spoke about since running. I have the utmost respect for political PR reps.
3 comments:
OH man. Yes. Didn't you know that EVERY President is destined for failure from the beginning? They are always screwed from the beginning. Americans are the most fickle voters...that's a conversation for another, longer day. Political PR reps have it going on in the biggest way. Someone has to do it...
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