To the Editor:
Re “Obama Weighs a Paring of Goals for a Health Bill” (front page, Jan. 21):
President Obama now indicates that he may shift positions on health care reform and throw the notion of universal coverage under the bus.
That would be another miscalculation. From the moment he chose his cabinet, Mr. Obama set a course of nonprogressive ideology, defined by corporate-friendly policies and double-edged social policies that please nobody.
He miscalculated on health care reform, ignoring polls showing that a majority of Americans favor a single-payer system and instead counting on a Democratic majority in Congress to pass a compromise. His attempt to usurp corporate opposition by letting insurance and pharmaceutical companies shape the legislation was a slap in the face to millions of voters. Nobody wants a health care bill cobbled together by Congressional sellouts and corporate lobbyists.
By failing to lead our nation in a new direction, Mr. Obama has given rise to a tidal wave of reactionary conservatism while at the same time alienating his base of progressive support. Indeed a shift is in order—toward the kind of reform that the president’s soaring rhetoric promised during his campaign.
Steve Blank
Middleton, Wis., Jan. 21, 2010
Note from KBJ: This letter is more evidence that readers of the New York Times live in an alternate universe. Perhaps we should call them the Unreality-Based Community.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 