FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both sides may be, and one side must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.
President Abraham Lincoln–late September 1862 after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation
What a week we’ve had since I last wrote. First the tragedy at Ft. Hood, where an Army psychiatrist grabbed his gun and opened fire on his fellow soldiers killing 13 innocent men and women. Details are beginning to emerge—he is a Muslim, he was days away from being deployed to Afghanistan and there seem to have been red flags aplenty that he was unbalanced. Among the many warnings that were either ignored or at least passed around the military command like a hot potato included that the shooter was emailing a radical Islamic imam in Yemen and was spending his time at military medical conferences presenting slide shows on the evils of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The supreme irony here is that an Army psychiatrist, trained and educated by the Army to treat Army personnel, went on a homicidal rampage. As we continue to learn more—and it appears the doctor will survive so we’ll eventually hear his side of the story—the circumstances surrounding this senseless tragedy are only getting worse. Somehow, the combination of bureaucratic paralysis, ignorance, desperation and sheer incompetence allowed this man to keep his position, begging the horrible question whether or not this all could have been preventable or at least foreseeable.
On Wall Street, Goldman Sachs is back in the news. After accepting somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 billion in government bailout money, Goldman went right back to the practices that led to last fall’s economic disaster and is now a financial holding company, even bigger than when they were “too big to fail.” The results were that Goldman posted their highest profits—ever—and are now doling out their biggest bonuses ever. Remember, this is all in the same week when the unemployment rate went to double digits.
Just to add insult to injury, Goldman was somehow able to acquire more swine flu vaccinations for its employees than most of the New York hospitals were able to secure for their patients. And if that wasn’t enough, in a very long—but fascinating—article in last Sunday’s New York Times Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein proudly proclaimed that he and his firm were doing “God’s work.” The immediate question was whether or not Blankfein and his bank get it. I think the more pertinent question is, “Do they care?”
The last news item that spoiled my weekend was the passing of the Health Care Reform Bill by the House of Representatives. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi proudly accepted accolades for getting the bill through, with many of her peers declaring this the crowning achievement of her career and a true testament to her leadership qualities. Then someone read one of the last-minute amendments to the bill—specifically, the Stupak amendment concerning abortion—and that’s when my head started spinning.
The Stupak amendment would—if it became law—supersede the Hyde amendment, which states that no federal funding will pay for abortions. The Hyde law has been an uneasy 33-year-old truce between pro-choice and pro-life factions in Congress. And if you’ve noticed, the abortion discussion has been quiescent for the last 18-24 months.
The new Health Care Reform bill passed by the House last weekend mandates a government funded insurance exchange for 80 percent of Americans—think of a virtual mall for insurance companies, services and customers. This is a good thing. What the Stupak amendment further mandates is that no provider in the exchange can provide abortion services/counseling, etc. Unlike the Hyde provision, who is paying for the policy and the services becomes irrelevant, since these medical services simply will not be offered.
Regardless of where you are on the pro-life/pro-choice issue I think we all can agree that in a Stupak amendment world the availability of abortion services would be drastically reduced. The president quickly responded by stating, “This is a health care issue, not an abortion issue.” Sorry sir, but I believe it’s too late. If you thought the Public Option discussion was ugly, then stay tuned. I’m not sure if the amendment was a stroke of genius by the anti-health care reformers or just blind luck, but if there is one issue guaranteed to grind legislation to standstill Stupak and his cronies have found it.
This path to disaster is what I found so confounding about Speaker Pelosi’s acquiescence to this 11th hour amendment, which to put it bluntly, is gasoline on a blazing bonfire. Discussion on this topic will only further divide an already angry and scared populace on an extraordinarily divisive issue in this country. Expecting the cast of wishy-washy characters in D.C. to act in this type of environment is a pipedream. Personally, I see the cable airwaves, talk radio, op-ed pages and the blogo-sphere becoming monopolized by the abortion issue as we approach the year’s end and the battle lines are drawn, with health care reform all but forgotten.
Overly pessimistic? I sincerely hope so, but I’m not holding my breath. Unfortunately, I think Pelosi’s finest moment will go down in history as a missed opportunity for her, the president, and the country.
