Jay Kuten: Obama in the rearview mirror

Jay Kuten

NOW that both political parties have chosen their nominees for president, the US public can look forward to 100 days of raucous campaigning, signalled by the demonising of each other by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

It's not too early for an assessment of the administration of the outgoing President, Barack Hussein Obama.

While this essay, the first of a series, is intended to deal with domestic policy and achievement, it's impossible to ignore the fact that the nation has been at war through his entire presidency and the effect of war is felt in both domestic and foreign policy.

Critics of Obama have suffered the soft bigotry of heightened expectations, that is that electing an African-American would fulfil all liberal hopes. It was not just Americans who prematurely congratulated themselves for open-mindedness in electing an African-American president. Apparently the same sense of self-enchantment overcame the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in their rush to judgment, putting presumed intention before achievement.

It's worth noting that Obama's acceptance speech in Oslo provided a rationale for a "just war", a defence of the paradox of military action beyond self-defence to action on humanitarian ground to keep the peace. The speech (http://1.usa.gov/1KRp85w) is worth reading in that paradox may be the defining phrase with which to view this administration. Paradox accompanying irony, as that speech may be viewed as a retrospective endorsement of George W. Bush's wars, one of which Obama had originally opposed.

Obama's positive domestic achievements are considerable in scope if few in number. Their small number is at least partly in response to Republican opposition greeting him from day one as the Republicans, in the minority, publicly pledged to obstruct his agenda in order to make him a one-term president.

In response to the collapsing economy of 2008 brought by the speculations of the large investment banks, Obama urged a Democrat-controlled congress to add $7 billion to the $7 billion that George Bush had already provided in order to rescue the big banks and keep the economy stable. In the process, Obama's stimulus also saved General Motors from bankruptcy. The latter saved many jobs in the auto industry and significant associated industries.

What the stimulus, engineered through a veto-proof congress, did not do was provide relief for homeowners caught in the tide of predatory bank lending, nor did it provide for necessary infrastructure repairs in a country whose bridges and roads were increasingly unsafe. Instead of the job creation of infrastructure work, the honeymoon of Obama's first two years was spent on healthcare -- the Affordable Care Act.

This was ostensibly designed to provide healthcare coverage to the 40 million uninsured Americans and provided fodder for his Republican opponents to retake Congress when Obama did not actively campaign or explain just what Obamacare (as opponents called it) would do.

The ACA is an idea that originates in the Enterprise Institute, a right-wing Republican think tank. Unlike Medicare, a government-run, health payment scheme that covers seniors with minimal administrative cost, the ACA works through private insurance companies with the higher administrative costs that come with the profit motive. To enhance that bottom line of profit the insurance companies -- like the airline industry, its near model -- would normally supply minimised medical services. They don't have to because the ACA is tiered to different levels -- platinum, gold, silver and bronze with premium priced accordingly -- exactly like the airlines. The accent is on affordable Care.

The controversy over implementation of the ACA continues apace. Republicans claim they want to overturn it. However, were they to succeed somehow, like the dog who caught up with the car, it's not clear what they would do to replace it. Their big political donors, the insurance companies and Big Pharma, whose stocks have risen 80 per cent since its inception in 2012, might not be happy. And the campaign by Bernie Sanders, who wanted to extend Medicare to all, has pushed Clinton and Trump to hint at just that -- a single payer system that liberals want.

Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.