Thursday, August 13, 2009

It’s About Time for Obama to Put Up or Shut Up

We’ve been hearing it for months now, this health care debate. And what I’ve yet to see is our President offering anything other than vague generalities which amount to “trust us”, “we’ll take care of you”, and “we need to fix health care now”.

People are unnerved when you go and change something so fundamental in their lives. That is one reason why 9/11 was such a trauma to the country. The American mainland had not been directly attacked in centuries, and here we were suddenly facing the deaths of thousands in our largest city. It shook our fundamental sense of security to the core.

Health care something we also regard as an integral component of our society. We get sick, we go to the doctor. We get hurt, we go to the hospital. Our child becomes ill, we take them to the pediatrician. If something really bad happens, like cancer, we have reasonable assurances our health insurance will cover treatment. If you're going to change that, you’d better be prepared to offer specifics.

Now along come the Democrats, who want to not only change that, but radically change it. The radical nature of this change is scaring the hell out of everyone. And what is Obama doing to reassure us? To outline what the changes actually are? Not much. Innuendo, rumor and outright lies have been flying all over the internet and networks.

It’s time, Mr. President, for the vague generalities to be replaced by concrete proposals. For fuzzy assertions this really won’t bankrupt the country to be replaced by hard numbers. For ultra-right falsehoods to be repudiated with specific truths.

Stop telling us everything’s going to be all right, Mr. President, and start showing us. You're supposed to be our leader.

Lead.

No comments: