Dissent on Display As Congress Debates Health Reform

Current Events Week #1 (Abe Sample) Supplemental Issues Haiti Natural Disaster: Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, a place where malnutrition is widespread and less than half the population has access to clean drinking water. At 4:53:09 p.m. on Jan. 12, at a point 15 miles southwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince, a 7.0 earthquake struck. Haiti, a nation of 9 million people, sits atop the junction of the Caribbean and North American plates, and t.he quake was not unexpected. No Haitian city has a public sewage system; nearly 200,000 people live with HIV or AIDS, and just half of Haitian children are vaccinated against basic diseases like diphtheria and measles. The quake will make things unimaginably worse. As always in the developing world, the first priority will be clean water. With drinking-water distribution systems destroyed — and survivors crammed into camps without sanitation — water supplies could quickly become contaminated. That could lead to rapidly spreading waterborne diseases like cholera and dysentery that can sweep through refugee camps. With adequate aid, however, the worst might be averted. Speaking on the issue President Obama asserted that, “I do believe that America has a continued responsibility to act. Our nation has a unique capacity to reach out quickly and broadly and to deliver assistance that can save lives.” Most agreed, but Rush Limbaugh incurred criticism for saying that Obama was using the issue for political gain and America had no such responsibility.”

Afghanistan War: What is the right thing to do in Afghanistan? It should be remembered that we invaded with cause: the Taliban government was providing safe havens for al-Qaeda, from which the Sept. 11 attacks were launched. Having routed the existing Afghan government, we had a responsibility to restore order. We have bungled that responsibility for eight years, attempting a Western version of order: central governance, the appearance of democracy — but largely ignoring traditional Afghan ways of social organization. The national-security challenge still exists. Mr Obama’s recent decision to ramp up the fight in Afghanistan could hurt him politically. Doves fret that it will be his Vietnam—that a costly, bloody, unwinnable war will derail his presidency. Hawks gripe that although he made the right decision to send more troops, he dithered for months before making it and then exuded irresolution as he did so. He said that America “has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan” and will only do “what can be achieved at a reasonable cost”. The Taliban may take that to mean that all they need to prevail is a little patience. Spotlight: Same-Sex Marriage: When California voters quashed the state's court-ordered experiment with same-sex marriage in 2008, gay advocates vowed to fight on. Their latest battleground: a San Francisco courtroom, where a judge will weigh in on the controversial Proposition 8--and hand down the first federal ruling on whether the U.S. Constitution forbids state bans on same-sex marriage. If California's law is found to violate the 14th Amendment (which guarantees due process and equal protection), it could threaten anti-gay-marriage statutes well beyond the Golden State. It would change the Supreme Court’s stance on gay issues from one of the rational basis test to the strict scrutiny model where-in it is nearly impossible for state’s to discriminate against homosexuals. The case also has many other constitutional issues like whether the media can be admitted, in this case through youtube, into the court room or whether that violates civil liberties.

The Massachusetts Senate race: Too close for comfort MASSACHUSETTS is the Democratic Alabama. Republicans deride the liberal, coastal state as “Taxachusetts” and worse. It has produced two failed Democratic presidential candidates, John Kerry and Michael Dukakis, successfully portrayed as coastal cissies. It is also home to America’s most enduring Democratic dynasty: the Kennedys. Its combination of unions, intellectuals and blacks makes it one of the safest Democratic states in the country. The state as a whole does not have a single Republican member in the House or Senate. Democrats are alarmed, then, that just before an election on Tuesday January 19th for Edward Kennedy's old seat, polls are surprisingly close. The Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney-general, should be a shoo-in. But Scott Brown, her opponent, even had a slender lead in one opinion poll, though he was 17 points behind in another. A more recent snapshot of voters’ intentions, taken between Monday and Wednesday, now has Ms Coakley four points behind. The case questions both the state of partisanship in America and the influence of Obama who recently decided to fly to the state to help Coakley. Main Issue Barack obama's first year The year is over and the verdict is in and the results are….mixed. Governing is harder than campaigning. But America’s 44th president has made an adequate start. Mr Obama came to power proclaiming an end “to the petty grievances...that for far too long have strangled our politics” and to “the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long”. By electing him, he said, Americans chose “unity of purpose over conflict and discord”. Alas, this was balderdash. Abroad, Mr Obama is still loved. But at home his star is tarnished. His approval rating has fallen from almost 70% at the time of his inauguration a year ago to 50% now.

Mr Obama’s reputation as a miracle-worker was easier to maintain on the stump than in office. He said he would end the war in Iraq, bring health insurance to all Americans, erect a cap-and-trade system to curb global warming and clean America’s soiled reputation by closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay. He has not yet done any of these things, though he has made progress in Iraq and is close to signing a health-care bill.

None of this should be surprising. Governing is hard, especially during an economic crisis. The American political system is fraught with checks and balances: a president cannot simply tell Congress what to do. Everything takes time and requires ugly compromises. Nonetheless, many of Mr Obama’s fans feel let down.

A YouGov Polimetrix poll for The Economist found that Americans disapprove of Mr Obama’s handling of the economy by 54% to 40%. They also frown on his handling of health care (by 53% to 40%), terrorism (48% to 42%), immigration (49% to 28%), Afghanistan (51% to 39%), Iraq (50% to 41%), Social Security (49% to 33%) and gay rights (39% to 33%). Of the ten topics mentioned in the poll, he scored a pass mark on only two: education, where he has taken tentative steps to promote autonomous “charter” schools and the environment. In short, Americans still like Mr Obama more than they like his policies, but they are increasingly souring on both.

Yet, by some measures, his first year has been quite successful. He has made no disastrous mistakes, and can brag of four substantial achievements. First, he has done wonders for America’s image abroad. Foreigners warm to his African and Muslim roots, his childhood in Indonesia, his Harvard cosmopolitanism. He seems less brash, more diplomatic and more respectful of Muslims than his predecessor. He calls for a world free of nuclear weapons. He takes a stand against torture. He talks in complete sentences. “[E]ngagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation,” he told the Nobel committee. “But...[n]o repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.” How much does this matter? When George Bush was president, foreigners expressed less positive views of American goods, services and even the landscape. Under Mr Obama, he finds, America is once again the most admired country in the world (having slipped to seventh place in 2008). Using the same tools that consultants use to value brands such as Coca-Cola or Sony, he guesses that the value of “Brand America” has risen from $9.7 trillion to $11.8 trillion. Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, Mr Anholt calls this “a pretty good first year”.

Second, and more concretely, the American economy appears to have stabilised. The crisis that was raging when Mr Obama was elected has eased. Carrying on where the previous administration left off, Mr Obama has used gobs of taxpayers’ cash to prop up tottering banks and insurers. He deserves at least some of the credit for the American financial system not collapsing. He intervened to rescue two of America’s largest carmakers, General Motors and Chrysler. He stimulated demand with vast injections of borrowed money. All this, his supporters say, helped to restore confidence, thereby preventing a painful downturn from turning catastrophic.

Third, Mr Obama has shown he is serious about winning in Afghanistan. As Iraq grows calmer, Mr Obama is pulling out American troops, as he said he would. If all goes to plan, only a handful will remain by the end of 2011. Meanwhile he is escalating the war in Afghanistan, as he also promised. By putting tens of thousands more American boots on the ground, he hopes to make the country stable enough to start pulling out by next summer. Fourth, Mr Obama is close to signing the biggest shake-up of America’s dysfunctional health-care system since the 1960s. The House and Senate have each passed a bill, and now the two mammoth documents are being haggled into one. Before long—perhaps before Mr Obama’s state-of-the-union message—health reform will probably become law.

Many details have yet to be finalised, but the outline looks roughly like this. Every American will be obliged to have health insurance. Those who cannot afford it will receive subsidies. States will set up carefully regulated exchanges to make it easier for individuals to shop around for the right policy. Insurers will be barred from excluding those with pre-existing health problems.

Most of the tens of millions of Americans who currently lack health cover will soon have it, predicts Mr Obama. And ways will be found to curb costs. Others worry that reform will cost too much. Both bills call for wasteful spending to be cut, but largely in unspecified ways at some time in the future. And pitfalls abound. For example, if the government compels everyone to get health insurance, insurers can fairly easily cope with the requirement that they turn no one away. But if the fine for not buying insurance is too low, young healthy people may simply opt to pay it. Many will wait until they are ill to start buying insurance. So the pool of insured Americans will grow sicker. Premiums will rise, prompting more healthy people to stop buying insurance. This is called a “death spiral”. If it happens, either the system will collapse, or the government will have to save it with public money. Most likely, Congress will be tinkering with health care for years to come. NAME:______PERIOD:______DATE:______

CURRENT EVENTS QUESTIONS

1.) What is your opinion on the best solution to the crisis in Afghanistan?

2.) What is the level of responsibility for America in Haiti and in 3rd world counties?

a.) Is it greater in our hemisphere?

3.)Why does California so often effect the entire nation?

a.) What is the rationale for both sides on the Gay Marriage issue?

b.) What will happen in the long run and why?

4.) Does the Massachusetts senate race reflect badly on Obama or are local issues more important to voters?

5.) What is your view of Obama’s presidency after one year and why? What grade do you give him?

6.) What are his greatest accomplishments?

a.) .What are his greatest setbacks?

7.) What has Obama’s greatest challenge been so far? a.) What is his greatest challenge going forward and why?

8.) If you were Obama’s chief of staff what would be your first priority in his second year after finishing health care reform?