Posted by
Kenneth Hanson on Thursday, March 19, 2009 4:07:13 PM
It recently came to light that President Obama was considering making soldier's private insurance pay for injuries suffered in the service to their country. Today, after a political firestorm, Press Secretary Gibbs sprinted out to announce that President Obama has decided to discontinue pursuing the idea. How chaotic and badly managed are things in the Obama White House for a plan like this to get so far along? It is as politically a ham-handed move as I’ve seen in a very long time. Where is Rahm Emanuel in this? It is his job to protect the president from stupid ideas and stupid people.
American Legion and VA people met with Obama in the oval office the other day to express their concern. People in the meeting said that every time the question of whether this was “moral” or “right”, the president deflected the concern and refocused the discussion on what the administration’s “cut” would be by shifting military injury treatment to private insurers. The head of the American Legion left the meeting disappointed and angry. He said that the president appeared firmly committed to the idea.
Now that the idea is public, and it is clear to anyone with any sort of political savvy or sense of morality that it is an incredibly bad idea, it has been retracted. But my question still is how does the west wing staff let something like this happen? And what does it say about Obama that he was so firmly committed to it?