The bigger picture?
Like many of my friends, I have been watching Obama’s battle to introduce health care reforms into the US with some concerns – concerns about the issue itself, and about the heat of the issue on both sides.
And, all that said, it was still a relief for me to wake up this morning to the news that the bill has now been passed, in part because the cost of failure would have been huge for Obama.
However, I was also especially intrigued by this analysis from Michael Tomasky, who said: “at its heart the story is about the tension in American society between the individual and the community – whether we are just a loose confederation of individuals who should be left alone to pursue self interest, or something more than that, a community of citizens with mutual ties and obligations.“
That wider, more philosophical, perspective makes so much sense. It resonates a lot with the work I do around cultural discourses, and sheds light as to just why the issue was so important, and makes me even gladder that Obama was successful.
