The last of couple weeks have been tough for President Obama and his administration. First, the website created for the Affordable Care Act that is used, at least in part, in insurance exchanges has been an absolute mess, and then the President had to go before the American people and back-track from a previous promise that whoever wanted to keep their current health insurance, which wasn't totally true.
Now, this stuff was bound to be scrutinized thoroughly from the start. It deals with possibly the most controversial issue in a decade, and every person from all sides of the argument have been chiming in. However, it is still funny how polarized the media is on the issues: groups like Fox News and the Washington Free Beacon absolutely blast the President, using it as proof that he doesn't know what he's doing and is a liar, further calling for 'Obamacare' to be repealed. On the other side, groups like CBS try to downplay the news as much as possible.
Now, from my perspective, I think it's absolutely true that the website fiasco has been a problem, and only further muddies the murky waters surrounding the implementation and overall impact of the Affordable Care Act. If the government decides what's best for the people is universal, mandatory health insurance, then I think that it should be their responsibility to make sure that its implementation is done near seamlessly: if you're going to take over for the private sector, then you better do at least as good a job as them. However, I don't think that the government website's early difficulties are cause for anarchy.Nor do I believe that the President's 'lies' are absolutely extraordinary. In another post I'll go into his comments in more detail, but suffice it to say that (at least in my opinion) no malice was intended. While I disagree with anyone defending him as innocent, I think that blatantly attacking him is wrong as well.
The one news source that seemed to agree with me was NBC News. In one of there First Thoughts articles found here, the authors give a very objective take on the whole situation. They assess what's going, give insights, and share thoughts from politicians from both sides. It was exactly what I was hoping to read: factual information with fair opinion.
I don't think it's right to expect perfection from either our government or news media.. Both will have biases and flaws that we not necessarily like, but that's not uncommon. However, I do believe that it's fair to presume that each is trying to do the best they can to fairly inform their audience. It may not be what sells, but facts are what is vital. When we get away from that, and concentrate more on informing or arguing on ideological lines, it creates chaos that is really tough not to laugh at.
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