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First 100 Days: Day 9 - Of Cocktails and Cocksuckers
moniker
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Registered User regular
And so it begins. What will be the first items accomplished? How good will they be or how much will they suck? Will bipartisanship actually occur or will logjams get broken by sheer force of will? When will Harry Reid buckle under and capitulate? And who will he capitulate to? What's going to happen in the Middle East? How many times will the talking heads talk about the historic nature of the first black President signing a bill into law, and the first black President vetoing a bill, and the first black President using a pocket veto, and the first black President having a ceremony on the south lawn, and the first black President to host a state dinner, and the first black President to raid the white house ice cream stash....
Let's do this thing.
Politifact: List of campaign promises and their status.
Wikipedia Article on the time line of the administration.
Accomplishments thus far:
Executive Orders-
Legislation Signed into Law-
Legislation Vetoed-
Let's do this thing.
Politifact: List of campaign promises and their status.
Wikipedia Article on the time line of the administration.
Accomplishments thus far:
Executive Orders-
- Requiring the closure of Guantanamo Detention Center within 1 year. [citation]
- Establishing the Army Field Manual as the standard for interrogation techniques for everyone. [citation]
- Closing the 'black sites' and putting a halt to extraordinary rendition, and ordinary rendition, of prisoners or detainees. [citation]
- Freezing the pay for all White House Staff earning a salary of over $100k. [citation]
- Banning gifts from lobbyists and preventing administration officials from working as lobbyists for two years after leaving the White House or until the Administration is ended. [citation]
- Ending the 'global gag rule' and permitting government funding to clinics that provide abortions. [citation]
Legislation Signed into Law-
- Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act [citation]
Legislation Vetoed-
- None.
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This discussion has been closed.
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Point B, at least. The economy will have to revitalize itself, and universal health care isn't going to happen during his first term, not with the aforementioned economic crisis going on.
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
If he's smart he'll take a stepwise approach to healthcare, starting with expanded funding and eligibility for Medicaid and VA.
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
Universal health care is a big step towards revitalizing the economy though. Like, if Ford/GM/Chrysler didn't have to pay so much for their employee's (and former employee's) health care, they wouldn't be broke.
I heard he's going clubbing or barhopping or something until the wee hours of tomorrow morning.
Congress is pushing him left, which is weird to say, but true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kBeD1L_nd4
Universal Health Insurance will help alleviate the economic crisis for businesses. It's going to happen. Not necessarily in the first 100 days, but in the first year or two.
I just don't think it's going to fly politically, with all of the other spending he's going to have to be doing.
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
Say I'm the President! Say it!
Oooooh, you're the President!
That addresses the one huge problem of people not getting preventive care and putting it on emergency rooms instead.
Obama's also going to need to address doctor pay incentives, which means fighting one hell of a lobby. We'll save money if doctors can actually be bothered to first prescribe statin drugs to patients with heart disease before going straight to surgery.
Obama has a ton of power right now. He's overwhelmingly popular, the public feels like he has a mandate for dramatic change. For a little while he can ram damn near anything he wants through Congress. And of course, if you reform health care to make it cheaper, you're saving so much money down the line it's ridiculous and he knows that and more importantly has the ability (and goodwill) to make that argument to the American people.
Also, most of the important reforms can be paid for by withdrawing from Iraq.
Buh? Is that really a widespread problem?
That's not what the first 100 days represents. It's the amount of action taken by him and the Congress ala FDR. Nobody thinks everything is going to be great come April 30th, but they do expect a lot of shit to have begun or get created between now and then.
Presidents - especially ones armed with a sympathetic legislature - can do quite a bit with the economy, actually. And Obama has the second half of the bailout package to disburse, and how that is done will help set the climate for years to come.
And no, despite what the droolers on network news say, health care reform cannot wait until things are humming along again. It's needed right now more than ever. Have you ever heard of human capital?
Actual Play: Mage: the Awakening - At the Edge of All Things
/bellyache
FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT TO KISS HANDS AND SHAKE BABIES
Not if he does as promised and diverts many of those troops back to Afghanistan. I agree he has a lot of political capital right now, but I'm not sure he's going to be so quick to spend it on this.
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
I was referring to the "fly politically" argument, not anything about moral good or things like that.
FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT TO RUB ONE OUT BETWEEN MEETINGS IN THE OVAL OFFICE
The economy has to be his initial focus. Getting the stimulus bill done quickly maximizes how much of the downturn it can head off and he has the support to get it done. Similarly, he can start detailing the withdrawal from Iraq immediately, even if the withdrawal itself will take ~18 months.
At the same time, he can move forward on some ideas with Major support. Repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell is supported by 75% of the population. By pushing through popular legislation, Obama will solidify his initially extremely high numbers and undercut later claims that he's "the most liberal President since X."
Not to get back on this, but its a position opposed by a sizable majority including Obama himself, and its something that shouldn't even approach priority.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
If you read between the lines from the transition stuff, it looks like it's become the #1 domestic priority. There's a reason he got a former majority leader to be Secretary of HHS, and it wasn't to run HHS. Energy is now #2.
FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT TO DROP A DEUCE IN AIR FORCE ONE
FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT TO ENGENDER A BIZARRE AND SLIGHTLY CREEPY OBSESSION WITH HIS BODILY FUNCTIONS ON THE INTERNET
Not that I'm incredibly well versed on the subject, but a major problem with the medical industry in general is that the profit motive is terrible at preventative care. Doctors tend to be motivated to "do a procedure", because they get cash for it. This also means that your average GP gets paid not-too-well even though they're the most efficient way of treating many health issues, while the dude specializing in stomach stapling has 15 houses.
Also, there are some absolutely insane payment issues with psychiatric problems. Treating depression pays half what treating "chronic headaches" does.
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
To do something, sure. But there's a big space between doing something and "government-paid healthcare for everyone!"
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
I believe so. Doctor's associations have all sorts of reasonable rules and procedure orders to follow, that presumably the member doctors agree to...and then they go ahead and throw those rules out the window and do whatever procedure they want and bill the insurance companies.
They also don't have enough information, for when they're actually trying to do the right thing. Despite medical records supposedly being transferred to each provider, doctors often don't know every other treatment that a patient is receiving, or has received in the past, so they don't know the whole picture and can't prescribe the best treatment which will lead to higher costs.
Changes to address these problems seem like they would be a lot cheaper than expanding Medicaid eligibility, but would very hard to get passed.
Well, it's more government subsidies and guaranteed access to health care for everyone.
Did you not pay attention to his Universal Health Insurance proposals at all? I mean, you've had 2 years...
I bet he told him to be wary of the pretzels they give him.
'tacos rule'
Okay. I think I see what you're saying. I just think I reacted to heart surgery specifically because heart surgery may have been a bad example... that's a high-risk surgery and a low-risk and popular class of drugs.
Well, it's easier to get doctors and hospitals to comply with new procedures when they're getting government dollars. You probably can't pass a law that says "You need to adopt a standardized electronic medical record system." But you can expand Medicaid and Medicare and then say, "If you want to keep sucking on the government's teat, you need to adopt a Medicaid/Medicare-compatible EMR system." Then all the big hospitals adopt compatible systems, and smaller clinics and private practices start to see that trading records with the big hospitals is easier if they hop on the bandwagon too.
I figure it was about the dead aliens they have stashed at Area 51.
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
I am confused.