Op Ed: 'Exceptionalism' Demonstrated In Healthcare Law
Patience, Perseverance, People-Power Prevail Again

Part 1 of 2: "This is what change looks like."

White House Photo, Pete Souza, 3/23/10

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Despite desperate dollar-power deployed lavishly to lubricate corporate capture of many key Congressional components, true American exceptionalism was again displayed for all the world to see on Monday in D.C.

"We proved that this government -- a government of the people and by the people -- still works for the people," said Obama on Sunday night when the historic legislation and an accompanying package of fixes were approved on Sunday.

"This is what change looks like."

Around the world, once again, people of many nations seeking to progress toward their own democracy, now can see what can happen when the wit, wisdom and will of the people are supported and guided by a President determined and totally devoted to making sure nothing and no one is allowed to derail that democratic demand.

Even the most adamant GOPster opponents were forced to admit President Obama scored a complete reversal of what many pundits had already presumed was due to be the most significant defeat of his young administration.

Instead Obama-and-crew, rallying strong people resources nationally, found ways to bring cooperation and consensus to wavering Democrats needing to know the true sentiments of the American people --in the face of frantic, furious but overwhelming futile fighting tactics and many questionable techniques by GOPster and corporate interests.

Intent on creating “an Obama Waterloo”, they found to their intense surprise and deep consternation what true “American exceptionalism” really means: Wit, wisdom and will of the people, applied with common sense and uncommon determination, devoted to the deepest regard for commonweal and consequence.

“The people won” is the constant consequential pundit-point, pronounced long and loud by most of the message-massagers appearing or writing in the mainstream print-media. That primarily-negative message was still further amplified and openly anticipated by too many in widespread broadcast and ostensible “news”-programs.

These are the same solemn souls suffering from over-simplified “analysis” who were fervently preaching the potent disintegration of the Obama Administration a few days ago, as an unavoidable, unforgiving consequence of the most concentrated corporate financial-fix operation ever undertaken.

Its extent, depth, potent penetrating power and its foreseen political-pandering impact were demonstrated by expenditures of “at last one million dollars daily” by one leading organization professing to be acting for the business community, primarily smaller retailers led to believe the bill failed to provide them with subsidizing funding.

The fact is that smaller businesses --recognized by Obama’s advisers as the heart-and-soul of community economy nationwide--are among the very first to be benefited, now that real healthcare help is available under this new law.

“Small businesses with fewer than 25 employees and average annual wages of up to $50,000 will receive tax credits to offset the cost of buying insurance for their workers”, the Washington Post reports.

New rules for insurance companies will also take effect. Other immediate benefits, according to the Post, include these:

"In six months, all new plans will have to cover the full cost of preventive care, including annual physicals and children's immunizations."

“Insurers won't be able to require prior approval for patients who need to see gynecologists or go to the emergency room."

“Also effective after six months will be a ban on insurance companies from dropping people from coverage when they get sick, a prohibition on health insurers from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions and a ban health insurance companies from placing lifetime caps on coverage.”

For seniors, "the bill will immediately expand the Medicare drug benefit and, effective July 1, provide a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs for the low income elderly."

Best of all for many seniors currently facing common cash shortages, the gap known as the "doughnut hole" in Medicare prescription drug coverage will gradually be closed, activated when the Senate finally passes the reconciliation bill, now demanding full-priority action.

Comprehensive healthcare as a human right has long been a worldwide pattern, while delayed here ever since the Theodore Roosevelt regime, despite constantly increasing efforts and major concerns, driven in recent years by the unavoidable fact of furiously ascending healthcare demands and the resulting costs.

The extremely heavy emphasis on first/priority for healthcare by the Obama administration comes from pragmatic understandings that those costs had long ago become “unsustainable”; were forcing many American households into poverty leading to penury and then to bankruptcy and/or loss of a long-treasured ---and long-mortgaged-- family home.

Here is the link to Part Two: Mar-24-2010: Op Ed: Change Process Shapes Healthcare Despite GOPsters Demands of Democracy Guarantee Delayed- 'Right' - Henry Clay Ruark Salem-News.com

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At 21, Henry Clay Ruark was Aroostook Editor for the Bangor, Maine DAILY NEWS, covering the upper 1/4 of the state. In the ‘40s, he was Staff Correspondent, then New England Wires Editor at United Press-Boston; later Editor for the Burlington, Vermont 3-daily group owned by Wm. Loeb, later notorious at Manchester, New Hampshire UNION LEADER for attacks on Democratic Presidential candidates.

Hank returned to Oregon to complete M. Ed. degree at OSU, went on to Indiana University for Ed.D. (abd) and special other course-work; was selected as first Information Director for NAVA in Washington, D.C.; helped write sections of NDEA, first Act to supply math, science, foreign language consultants to state depts. of education; joined Oregon Dept. of Education, where he served as NDEA administrator/Learning Media Consultant for ten years.

He joined Dr. Amo DeBernardis at PCC, helping establish, extend programs, facilities, Oregon/national public relations; moved to Chicago as Editor/Publisher of oldest educational-AV journal, reformed as AV GUIDE Magazine; then established and operated Learning Media Associates as general communications consultant group. Due to wife’s illness, he returned to Oregon in 1981, semi-retired, and has continued writing intermittently ever since, joining S-N in 2004. His Op Eds now total over 560 written since then.