All Entries Tagged With: "Budget"

So Comes a Bold Leap in a Weary World

I had a professor of political science at Vanderbilt who offered up a model of the U.S. Presidents through time, under the theory that in cycles of leadership only every third or fourth president could be a change agent. It was the Reagan Era at the time, as we tilted headlong toward an era of smaller government four Presidents after LBJ and the Great Society.

So if you look at Presidents Bush-Clinton-Bush as custodians of the office and not among those who wished to move the country, then President Obama’s fiscal year 2010 budget is a statement of a profoundly new model of how the government takes care of its people. It builds its momentum from the ashes of years of mistrust. It’s President Obama taking out the biggest loan in history to assure that college education will be a right, and in our industry that healthcare will eventually–but not yet–come to all.

A New Era of Responsibility

Is it too much? The numbers are stratospheric, including a FY 2010 deficit of $3.6 trillion. By comparison the $634 billion healthcare reserve fund called for under the budget seems but an installment plan into a much larger healthcare spend yet to be revealed.

The initial targets in healthcare–Medicare Advantage plans, imaging and providers–had to know this volley was coming. This line of pickets will fight hard enough, but imagine what comes next as the full implications of universal care are revealed.

I remember my professor leading a discourse on why we get this cycle of change in America. I believe it is because Americans have a natural inclination toward stability. We want the good times for a long time. So it is a rare era when a President may seize on an opportunity when our fear is highest and hope is lowest to make bold changes. Are we that ready, are we that scared, to walk along the healthcare path indicated in a 146 page budget summary? President Obama, it is clear, is betting we are at rock bottom.