In the news clips of Chris Christie’s speech at the Ronald Reagan Library in California last night there was a woman who spoke what the news story claimed was a general consensus. She emotionally pleaded for the New Jersey Governor to reconsider his decision not to run for President… that she and the entire nation needed him…need him? His inability to emphatically close the door on such a run, as he has previously tried, allowed the news media the following morning to hype uncontrollably about the possibility. What is going on here?
Chris Christie has found his niche. Although clearly more educated and intelligent than Sarah Palin, his background has about the same depth. He has held public office now for 21 months. He has virtually no background or even any record of interest in foreign affairs. His glib, self-deprecating, and often bi-partisan approach to public communication has given him a kind of Will Rogers appeal, someone you can laugh with and trust at the same time. Somehow to desperate moderate-right Republicans this is enough to put him in-charge of the United States and the Free World, damn the details.
Sarah Palin is not likely to run for President (see Pennyfound: Ignoring the Obvious 7/5/09). On a recent interview she indicated running would cramp her style as “a maverick”. She’s smart enough to know that increased public scrutiny holds mostly downside for her, especially in the pocketbook. Chris Christie, as I said earlier, is smarter than Sarah Palin…way smarter. Much of what he has given for reasons not to run is both admirable and impressive. He has said “I’m not ready”, indicated it wasn’t the right time, pointed out his shortcomings, and simply relayed a lack of desire, among other things. He knows he’s a darling of the media that has found a talent in himself to be attractive, but he also knows that 21 months as a governor, 7 years as US Attorney (appointed under questionable circumstances), 3 years as a lobbyist, and some squirrely in and out participation in local politics does not a President make.
I think there could be something more to his decision not to run. As opposed to Sarah Palin who grew up in a conservative Christian, cheerleader, beauty pageant, weather girl kind of environment, Christie developed in the raw middleclass environment characteristic of New York/ New Jersey. The controversies that have surrounded his years both as a local Freeholder (like a county supervisor) and later as US Attorney lead me to consider that the kind of pragmatism he may have embraced is something he’s rather not have dug up and set on the table. If such is true, nobody knows this more than him. He may say that he’s not ready to run for President; however he may actually be saying that he’ll never be ready to run. The Peter Principal argues that people often rise one level above their expertise to their level of incompetence. In Christie’s case, it may be that a Governorship is the last level he can rise before he reaches his level of exposure.
It is a commentary in itself that there are so many who would follow an unknown quantity, or in the case of Sarah Palin an incompetent known quantity, simply because they are desperate for someone to believe in. If there is a lesson in here somewhere it is that leadership contains critical elements that are not intellectual or political. We all intuitively know that right…or do we President Obama?
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Now and Later
My son is “jacked”, or so I am told. My first image is of a car half way through a tire change. I quickly understand, however, that they reference his physique. He’s in good health, works out religiously with his girlfriend, eats “healthy” (as compared with me, certainly), and takes physical risks (sports, weight lifting and such) without much concern. He is 25 and part of an army of young Americans fit or unfit, roughly between the ages of 20 and 35 (between leaving their childhood home and starting their own home with children), who are careening toward a precipice blinded by their own temporary good fortune. They are, for the most part, oblivious to the social and economic meltdown which is health care in the United States. Yet this problem will impact them so directly and in so many ways that their ambivalence leaves them akin to free-range chickens.
America has evolved its health care differently than every other advanced economy in the world. This was a complex evolution with many factors impacting the current state. Some common factors, however, have affected every economy over the past century; such as exponential population growth, exponential advancements in medical science, exponential dissemination of information, and exponential means of communication. With those common underlying dynamics, why is the US model so different… and so inefficient?
One major reason was the outcome of the 2nd World War, later combined with a manic fear of collectivism during the Cold War. With the exception of Canada (and to a lesser extent Australia) the US immerged from WWII without devastation. To the contrary, the Country was in better shape than it had been during the prior decade. Further, there was a righteousness that came from victory that persists to this very day. It was perceived, in many ways correctly, as a victory of Free Enterprise, but to question such became unpatriotic (or deemed treasonous as what occurred in the mid-50s, or by such sages as Sarah Palin today).
Where the rest of the world after the War saw major portions of their populations in devastation and without means, the concept of universal health care was both a necessity and consistent with a world view of fallibility. Those countries in Western Europe and the Far East had the ability to conceive a collective approach to health care without deeming such as undemocratic. They intentionally or not were able to view universal health care as liberating. Ironically, the United States, an integral player in the reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan, helped construct the bureaucracies to support universal health care. Canada, the noted exception, attempted an expanded free-market approach to health care, but facilitated by their parliamentary form of government later found it unworkable abandoned it for the British model.
The for-profit health care system in post-war America meshed nicely with rapidly expanding free-enterprise. The combination of strong organized labor, combined with a shortage of workers, which persisted from 1948 to 1972, health care (via insurance) became a form of invisible compensation. This was an historical accident without precedent (on a large scale), and without any logical argument for its efficiency. Quite the contrary, given the aforementioned dynamics of population, medical science, information, and communication, this system has proven itself to be extraordinarily inefficient. However, for the most part two generations have lived through it and now too many believe that employer covered health care is a natural state of affairs.
The Republicans in Congress, who argue for the status quo like junkyard dogs at the fence, find sympathetic ears by those employed individuals who can’t see their benefits as an actual use of compensation (i.e., something they’re buying). These so-called Conservative politicians wrap patriotism with the most egregious lies about the quality of our health care, exacting support for their position. You cannot have the “greatest health care system in the world” (as Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor have said countless times) and be 24th in the world for adult mortality and 26th in infant mortality. These politicians are actually fighting for those on the receiving end of the $1.6 trillion transfer that takes place each year - 2 to 4 times that of all other modern nations on a per capita basis. Tragically, the nation eats what it’s being fed. Obama, unable to compete, ends up creating a politically expedient health law which - once he agreed to drop a public option - only entrenches the for-profit system. There’s not much light poking through the clouds.
The young adults in the US today are playing on the tracks and they can’t see the train coming. Before this American health care system becomes unsustainable too many will find themselves and their children under cared for, their lifestyles compromised by huge health care costs, their parents destitute or without legacy, their mobility compromised, their ability to take risk reduced, and their responsibility for the previous generation a near impossible social burden. None of that even includes the anxiety and diminished quality of life that comes from the fear of uncertainty at the most basic of levels - survival. Right now they have little fear; they unconsciously plan on living forever, just as they are doing right now. If they only knew…
America has evolved its health care differently than every other advanced economy in the world. This was a complex evolution with many factors impacting the current state. Some common factors, however, have affected every economy over the past century; such as exponential population growth, exponential advancements in medical science, exponential dissemination of information, and exponential means of communication. With those common underlying dynamics, why is the US model so different… and so inefficient?
One major reason was the outcome of the 2nd World War, later combined with a manic fear of collectivism during the Cold War. With the exception of Canada (and to a lesser extent Australia) the US immerged from WWII without devastation. To the contrary, the Country was in better shape than it had been during the prior decade. Further, there was a righteousness that came from victory that persists to this very day. It was perceived, in many ways correctly, as a victory of Free Enterprise, but to question such became unpatriotic (or deemed treasonous as what occurred in the mid-50s, or by such sages as Sarah Palin today).
Where the rest of the world after the War saw major portions of their populations in devastation and without means, the concept of universal health care was both a necessity and consistent with a world view of fallibility. Those countries in Western Europe and the Far East had the ability to conceive a collective approach to health care without deeming such as undemocratic. They intentionally or not were able to view universal health care as liberating. Ironically, the United States, an integral player in the reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan, helped construct the bureaucracies to support universal health care. Canada, the noted exception, attempted an expanded free-market approach to health care, but facilitated by their parliamentary form of government later found it unworkable abandoned it for the British model.
The for-profit health care system in post-war America meshed nicely with rapidly expanding free-enterprise. The combination of strong organized labor, combined with a shortage of workers, which persisted from 1948 to 1972, health care (via insurance) became a form of invisible compensation. This was an historical accident without precedent (on a large scale), and without any logical argument for its efficiency. Quite the contrary, given the aforementioned dynamics of population, medical science, information, and communication, this system has proven itself to be extraordinarily inefficient. However, for the most part two generations have lived through it and now too many believe that employer covered health care is a natural state of affairs.
The Republicans in Congress, who argue for the status quo like junkyard dogs at the fence, find sympathetic ears by those employed individuals who can’t see their benefits as an actual use of compensation (i.e., something they’re buying). These so-called Conservative politicians wrap patriotism with the most egregious lies about the quality of our health care, exacting support for their position. You cannot have the “greatest health care system in the world” (as Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor have said countless times) and be 24th in the world for adult mortality and 26th in infant mortality. These politicians are actually fighting for those on the receiving end of the $1.6 trillion transfer that takes place each year - 2 to 4 times that of all other modern nations on a per capita basis. Tragically, the nation eats what it’s being fed. Obama, unable to compete, ends up creating a politically expedient health law which - once he agreed to drop a public option - only entrenches the for-profit system. There’s not much light poking through the clouds.
The young adults in the US today are playing on the tracks and they can’t see the train coming. Before this American health care system becomes unsustainable too many will find themselves and their children under cared for, their lifestyles compromised by huge health care costs, their parents destitute or without legacy, their mobility compromised, their ability to take risk reduced, and their responsibility for the previous generation a near impossible social burden. None of that even includes the anxiety and diminished quality of life that comes from the fear of uncertainty at the most basic of levels - survival. Right now they have little fear; they unconsciously plan on living forever, just as they are doing right now. If they only knew…
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