Obama's trouble

"Here's my big bitch," a lady who lives in Dearborn Heights and has five kids wrote to me last weekend. "The socialized medicine that BO [President Barack Obama] was supposed to implement is an utter failure."

Wonderful, I thought. Another person brainwashed by the insurance lobby and their front women, Sarah Palin and her mini-me, Delaware's Christine "I am not a witch" O'Donnell, whose anti-masturbation crusade has inspired the nation.

But I was wrong. Disillusioned in Dearborn Heights had a different take on all this, which may explain some of why health care reform isn't more popular: "I have way too many friends, or just humans I know, [who] remain without coverage. I am not one of them, but for as much hoopla as there was about passing the legislation there should have been a result. I am begging you to make a public comment."

Fair enough, and here it is: There hasn't been much result because most of the health care benefits don't take effect till the year 2014!

That was to give the insurance industry, etc., time to prepare. They seem not to be doing that; instead they are raising money like mad to try to repeal the health care bill.

Some of the health care bill's provisions have kicked into effect in the last few weeks. Insurance companies can no longer deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition, or kick you off the rolls if you get sick. If you have coverage already, you can keep your children on your policy till they turn 26.

But most of the bill, the part that makes it possible for nearly all Americans to have coverage, hasn't taken effect yet.

Politically, setting things up that way may have been a mistake. Consumers are hearing scare stories, most of them pure lies, spread by special interests with deep pockets — and who, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January, are allowed to spend unlimited amounts.

The Obama administration ought to have been doing a lot more to educate people; ought to be running a vast education campaign about what is in this bill and what is really at stake.

"Health care reform is on the way. Don't let them steal it from you." That's what the voters need to be told. But money may be lacking, and the president seems to be making another "mistake" as well: He seems to be too focused on doing his job.

Rochelle Riley, the Detroit Free Press columnist, took part in a mass interview session with the president recently. She said he compared himself with Jackie Robinson, the first black player in Major League Baseball. Obama said he thought that when he was a player, Old Number 42 was largely focused not on his historic legacy, but on his and the team's performance.

"I tend to just be focused on getting hits and making plays." Naturally, you'd think that was exactly what the job of the president should be. Except that he was wrong about Jackie Robinson. He was always conscious back in 1947 that he represented all of black America.

> Email Jack Lessenberry