Camille Puglia, a noted columnist and Obama supporter wrote in Salon.com
today
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/...12/town_halls/)
"....There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement
of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing,
fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The
president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation
since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with
apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.
"You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with
it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what
if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards
for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance
company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled
competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither
nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead
to rationing.
"I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three
weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present
the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The
U.SO. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European
nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized
health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically
absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition
period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can
ill afford with a faltering economy."