Meet The Obamas At Home

[cactusflower]

Michelle Malkin again? Next we'll be hearing from Dr Rush Limbaugh.

No fergalr -

By Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writer

The same story was reported widely in the press. You seem to have nothing to say about the substance of it.

[cactusflower]

Nice selective quoting there, cactusflower.

I'm still a little mystified about your exact point?

Edit: More from the above article--wow, if you saw these standing alone, her work sounds pretty awesome and trouble-free, doesn't it?

• Michelle Obama, an executive at the medical center, launched an innovative program to steer the patients to existing neighborhood clinics to deal with their health needs.
  
• The medical center markets its initiative as an effort to improve patient health for the poor and at the same time free its resources for emergencies and complicated procedures.
  
• "Michelle inspired us . . . to step back and take a holistic approach to this problem."
  
• Howard Peters of the nonprofit Illinois Hospital Association praised the medical center's efforts, saying the ER is not the place to provide patients with primary medical care.
  
• The hospital's general counsel, Susan Sher, said she approached Michelle Obama in 2001 and asked her to develop plans to bring the hospital closer to the surrounding neighborhood. Michelle Obama "grew up in this community," Sher said, adding that that makes her uniquely qualified.
• One of Michelle Obama's signature efforts has been working to relieve crowding in the emergency room, the second-busiest in Chicago. It logs 80,000 visits a year.
  
• Backed by a federal grant, Michelle Obama in 2005 launched the South Side Health Collaborative, under which counselors advise patients with noncritical needs that they can receive care elsewhere at a reduced cost. The medical center said in a report that some patients "make frequent visits to the ER because no one in the family has a personal doctor."
  
• "Obama's goal is to connect people in the community with doctors at [community health] centers, to let them know that they can use those physicians on a regular basis instead of ignoring symptoms until they send them to the ER, where care can cost five times more."
  
• Obama's program has enjoyed favorable news media coverage in Chicago and was eventually expanded into a broader program, the Urban Health Initiative. Under the effort, the hospital has started providing selected clinics with part-time medical personnel and has given $350,000 to enable a nearby clinic to nearly double in size.
  
• Center executives said the initiative, on which they spent $2 million last year, could be a national model.

Yeh - all those bits are by the highly paid PR consultant - who contributed to Obama's campaign. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2008082103653

My point is that the Obama's relations with communities have been predatory, rather than idealistic self sacrifice and service as portrayed by their political machine.

[East Coast Elitist]

Actually, all of those bits are by the same two authors who wrote your bits--the reporters who authored the WashPost article linked to, which attempted to give a slightly nuanced view of the Chicago hospital's attempt to deal with the very difficult issue of healthcare for the uninsured in the United States.

Of course, if you want to pick and choose to support your thesis--which seems to be OBAMAS=BAD--have at it.

By predatory, do you mean they're only in it for the money?

[H.R. Haldeman]

With her husband and the Democrats unleashing health care horror story anecdotes to gin up public fear....

They have learned the Rovian playbook well. Since the accusation of stirring up bogus fear was one routinely levelled at the Bush administration, let's now turn the same accusation on Obama. Classic Rove.

The difference, of course, is that there is no need to stoke up phoney fear about healthcare in the US because there is real fear about it already. And those horror anecdotes are not anomalies but rather the norm for as much as 17% of the population (those with no insurance, about 45m people).

[Nodin]

The difference, of course, is that there is no need to stoke up phoney fear about healthcare in the US because there is real fear about it already. And those horror anecdotes are not anomalies but rather the norm for as much as 17% of the population (those with no insurance, about 45m people).

Absolutely. Even working people with insurance are in terror of illness over there.

[cactusflower]

Actually, all of those bits are by the same two authors who wrote your bits--the reporters who authored the WashPost article linked to, which attempted to give a slightly nuanced view of the Chicago hospital's attempt to deal with the very difficult issue of healthcare for the uninsured in the United States.

Of course, if you want to pick and choose to support your thesis--which seems to be OBAMAS=BAD--have at it.

By predatory, do you mean they're only in it for the money?

I don't suppose they mind the money. No, my main point is that what they do is to portray themselves as having an ethos of public service and egalitarianism, whereas in reality their intervetions in public service are adverse for the poor. That is the case here and also with the Charter Schools, that have been a battering ram against the teachers unions and have mopped up money with no benefit to poorer schools and areas.

Obama's role in the Chicago schools system is well documented. This kind of stuff was his livelihood for most of his adult life.

Bush was in a sense easy to deal with as he and his colleagues were transparent neo conservatives.

Obama is much more opaque. He presents a carefully presented veneer. The question is, what is under the veneer. I started to look and yes, you are right, I didn't like what I've found.

[East Coast Elitist]

I don't suppose they mind the money. No, my main point is that what they do is to portray themselves as having an ethos of public service and egalitarianism, whereas in reality their intervetions in public service are adverse for the poor. That is the case here and also with the Charter Schools, that have been a battering ram against the teachers unions and have mopped up money with no benefit to poorer schools and areas.

Obama's role in the Chicago schools system is well documented. This kind of stuff was his livelihood for most of his adult life.

Bush was in a sense easy to deal with as he and his colleagues were transparent neo conservatives.

Obama is much more opaque. He presents a carefully presented veneer. The question is, what is under the veneer. I started to look and yes, you are right, I didn't like what I've found.

I have health insurance. If I have a headache that won’t go away, I go to my doctor, I don’t go to the emergency room of a hospital. My neighbor doesn’t have health insurance. If he has a headache that won’t go away, he might think his only option is to go to the emergency room, where it’s likely he’ll be diagnosed with a chronic sinus infection or some similar non-emergency illness (most headaches are not brain tumors). The visit will cost the hospital $2,000. Why should he not be encouraged to make his first stop a local clinic—where his diagnosis and treatment will cost the clinic $100—and save emergency care resources for true emergencies, for both insured and non-insured patients? (Not to mention that he’ll get the care he needs more quickly by not having to sit for hours on end in the emergency room). If I showed up at an emergency room with a headache, even though I’m insured, the nurses are just going to be exasperated and ask me why I didn’t call my doctor—and well they should.

The U.S. healthcare system is in dire need of reform. However, the problem isn’t a program in Chicago that tries to redirect people to where they can get the most help in the most cost-efficient way--your pal Malkin is trying to portray a potential part of a solution as the problem itself. (And she isn't pushing this skewed version of M. Obama’ involvement in this program out of concern for the poor, by the way. She is doing it to throw a spanner in any reform effort.)

[Clanrickard]

The thing is with Obama that the left by and large have defended him uncritically and have accepted the brand at face value. People were so desperate to get rid of Bush that they were ready to grab at anything.

For once you are half right. Obama is a chancer who has been anointed uncritically by the media in the US. He is an empty suit. No fan of Malkin and you would do well to steer away from here because the main stream right in the US think she is a loony.

[cactusflower]

What is the weird obsession with Malkin? The report isn't even her work.

She is completely irrelevant to the matter being discussed.

[cactusflower]

For once you are half right. Obama is a chancer who has been anointed uncritically by the media in the US. He is an empty suit. No fan of Malkin and you would do well to steer away from here because the main stream right in the US think she is a loony.

Anyone who appears out of nowhere with completely hollow sloganeering and gets a free media ride has got to have something wrong with him in my book

From the perspective of the right, I think he is much more your man than you think. I find it comical to see the obsessive hunt for evidence that he's a commie or radical muslim. If he was all those years in elite US colleges would have knocked it out of him.