Viral Socialite

The controversy surrounding healthcare reform does not appear as if it will end any time soon. Multiple lawsuits are currently pending regarding the federal government’s authority to enforce an individual mandate, which requires people to either buy health insurance or pay a fine.

Opponents of the mandate believe that it violates the 10th Amendment, and therefore states’ rights. The Obama administration contends that the commerce clause of the Constitution allows them to take such action, and wants the suits dismissed.

If the states’ lawsuits are allowed to reach the Supreme Court, it may take several years for the issue to be resolved. Legal experts believe that there is a slim, but not insignificant, chance that the Supreme Court would strike down the offending provision.

In that case, it will have a significant impact on how healthcare reform is implemented. While invalidating the health insurance mandate does not kill the legislation, it severely wounds it. That is because the mandate is the linchpin that holds the more popular parts of the law that expand coverage together.

The worst-case scenario is a reenactment of the New York market on a national scale. In New York State, health insurers have long been forbidden from refusing to sell policies to people with pre-existing conditions. Meanwhile, nobody is required to buy a plan.

Unfortunately, the situation has devolved into increasingly costly health insurance plans that nobody but the sickest people (who are the most expensive to treat) are willing to buy. Young and healthy individuals are not entering the patient pool; therefore, insurance companies cannot spread the cost of claims among a wider population. It’s a vicious cycle: rates go even higher, which makes health insurance plans even more unappealing to those who aren’t desperate. Eventually, the insurance industry would fail to survive.

Some people hope that Washington, D.C. will be forced to go back to the healthcare reform drawing board. The conservatives behind the legal challenges want the bill repealed entirely. On the other hand, liberals who feel that the legislation is too weak hope that the failure of this strategy would result in the resurgence of interest in a single-payer health care system. In the ultimate irony for those who fear socialized medicine, private insurance could end up being dismantled in favor of government-sponsored coverage if the mandate is considered illegal.

The term lobbyist refers to the people hired by groups or organizations with particular interests to convince members of Congress to pass or defeat legislation. Lobbyists may work on the behalf of different groups such as, business corporations, labor unions, executive branch agencies, foreign governments, or private or public interest groups. All these groups spend billions of dollars every year to gain access to lawmakers and try hard to influence their view on any political agenda. To clip the wings of lobbyists is a big issue in every democratic forum.

Some people think that the lobbyists are victimized with prejudice. They argue that it is impossible to prevent lobbying without abolishing the First Amendment, which provides Americans, even those who are paid to do it, the right to ‘petition the US government for a redress of objections raised by them.’ They even went to the extent that the government will be helpless in carrying out business effectively in the absence of lobbyist. Although, the statement may not be altogether false but during all this they fail to observe that the failure to produce legislation in the public interest stems from the existence of lobbyists in the corridors of power.

In the run up to the presidential election both Democratic Party candidate Barrack Obama and Republican Party nominee John McCain said that their campaign will not accept contributions from lobbyists. But that is hardly the truth. It’s only a matter of time until someone calls for a law that makes it mandatory for every lobbyist in Washington to paint a big, ‘L’ on his forehead. You cannot rule out the presence of lobbyists in the both the major political parties Democratic and Republican.

For a moment, if we discard away the conservative view then lobbying is as American as apple pie, which goes back to colonial times. The Rev. Increase Mather lobbied UK to get a new charter for Massachusetts. Benjamin Franklin is being referred by some of the intellectuals as the colonial lobbyist for Pennsylvania and other colonies. When the federal government came into power, lobbyists swarmed to Washington to safeguard the interest of their clients. Lobbyists are always in the news online. From the sources in the Democratic Party, media came to know that healthcare, carbon-emission, and tax changes legislation has faced heavy lobbying.

A few section of the conservative democrat feels nothing wrong in it. They argue that whenever Congress tries to enact a law and the executive branch writes regulations—citizens whose lives are going to be affected by those words will try to modify it in their interest. To serve their purpose they hire the best people in the power corridors of Washington who can employ their connections and expertise to safeguard their interest. They can help the decision makers in the government to understand how the words they write will affect US citizens.

In a nutshell, lobbying simply means if you have the cash in your pocket then you can influence governmental decisions, this is not even democratic. It is a form of corruption indeed! Still no government does anything about it, because they use lobbyists during the polls.

Since America elected the western industrialized world’s first non-white leader, scant media attention has been devoted to the sheer novelty of non-white faces representing the country. Yet the delicate subject of racial bias called for a direct address in 2010 if the midterm elections were to continue the path of social progress America had mandated with the 2008 election.

The new frontier of a global world comprised of 200 countries is peopled by a majority of non-whites and yet whites continue to control the world much the way whites ruled South Africa until the 1994 end of apartheid. Moreover, the historically predominant white perception continues to prevail, particularly through the mainstream global media. It was up to alternative writers, as a result, to draw attention to views of the new President that betrayed racial bias, however unconscious or unintentional.

Three opinion pieces in the Sunday New York Times on May 30 by regular columnists called for Obama to change. Maureen Dowd called for him to show more emotion about the disastrous British Petroleum oil spill that still could not be brought under control. Frank Rich called for Obama to take swifter and more aggressive action on the same crisis, faulting him for not holding more press conferences on the matter when the media on Google news a year earlier had faulted Obama with overexposure. Finally, Thomas Friedman wrote that the President should have reacted to the catastrophic spill with the gut reactions first daughter Malia, whose reported comment had elicited first ridicule and then an apology from conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck.

All three columnists as well as Glenn Beck are white. A fair question in light of that fact was the possibility that they were missing the big picture that Obama could see with the insight on global affairs that had gotten him elected to handle a global economic crisis.

Throughout the process of instituting reforms aimed at social progress in all areas of life from health care to finance, the new President has been charged with two extreme causes of disappointment. Conservatives have labeled his initiatives as ranging from socialist to fascist. Liberals have cited him for having sold out on his promise of change.

Yet a third possibility was that perhaps Obama was holding steady to the course of accomplishing just what needed to be done by a groundbreaking non-white head of a major industrialized country in a world dominated by whites and informed by a white perspective. Perhaps what needed to be changed in 2010 America was perception rather than the duly elected President.

It is midterm election season, which means that both major political parties are at each other’s throats and making their cases to the American public. This year, one of the primary issues is clearly healthcare reform.

For the most part, the issue is extremely partisan. The current law was spearheaded by Democratic congresspersons and signed by a Democratic president. It passed without a single Republican vote in either chamber of Congress. The GOP has vociferously called for the law’s repeal, and have filed lawsuits to that end.

The most important opinion, though, is that of the voting public. They are skeptical that the bill will actually help them, and are worried about its impact on the cost and quality of their health insurance plans. 49 percent of those polled by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal oppose the current reform law, while just 39 percent support it.

In that case, it would be assumed that there would be greater trust in Republicans handling the issue, since they opposed a law that many believe is disastrous. However, conventional wisdom has been turned on its head. In the same poll, a plurality of 47 percent trusted Democrats with health care. Republicans were trusted by 39 percent or respondents.

Why is this the case? It may be related to the perception of motives. Although the minority party is continuing their “repeal and replace” platform, some potential voters may doubt their sincerity regarding the second half of that statement. Prior to 2006, Republicans were the majority for over a decade. During that time, they ignored the topic of healthcare reform, while insurance rates continued to rise. After they thwarted the Clinton administration’s attempt at changing America’s health care system, the GOP failed to revisit the issue.

For all the flaws (perceived or actual) of the Democratic legislation, they have at least made a seeming good-faith effort to fix the system.