In the whole Barack Obama and Henry Louis Gates vs. the Cambridge Police fiasco, the great irony of the situation seems to have been lost in most of the Media firestorm following Obama's press conference.
The original Obama press conference was supposed to be used to promote Obama's vision of health care reform, but the Media coverage following it got derailed by Obama's reference to the police department's actions against Gates as "stupid". The irony here is in the fact that Obama promoted more government involvement into all our lives on one hand, while criticizing government involvement in one specific man's life.
But this disconnect in Obama's words is telling. Obama likes more active national government, and dislikes active local governments.
Even if you assume the police were wrong in the Gates situation, how many people were hurt by their actions? Only Gates himself. On the other hand, if the national government makes a mistake in their takeover of the health care industry, how many people will be hurt? At least millions, if not all 300 million of us.
In this scenario, the only way a government takeover of health care can be justified is on a simple assumption that national bureaucrats are somehow more efficient and effective than local bureaucrats. But are national bureaucrats efficient and effective enough to be able to handle the much larger numbers of people for which they will be responsible? Or will they just be overseeing a bunch of local bureaucrats who will handle the new health care responsibilities, much like how programs like welfare are currently handled?
Either way, Obama just provided another reason NOT to support this "stupid" health care takeover.
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