Obama Biohealth Obama on Healthcare:

Obama BioHealth

Obama on Healthcare: Personal Life and Politics

President Barak Obama made history with his successful push for legislation establishing a massive overhaul of the national healthcare system. Though many of the nation's citizens and lawmakers are not fully behind the reform as it has been enacted, or even necessarily behind the idea of reform in the direction Obama has pushed for altogether, Obama and others in his administration fought hard and managed to have bills passed in the House and Senate enacting the changes to the healthcare system. The degree to which Obama fought for this legislation, in fact, seems to belie an attachment to the issue that is more than simply politically and socially motivated, but that most likely stems from a personal drive connected to his own personal history. This literature review examines the strength of Obama's argument for healthcare reform from the perspective of his own biography.

A detailed accounting of Obama's stated position and his explicit legislative and executive actions on a wide array of issues is supplied by on the Issues.org, a non-partisan group that tracks both action and comment from many politicians on these issues. This resource makes it clear to see that Obama has been an outspoken and consistent advocate for healthcare reform and ensuring access to basic coverage even before he was elected to the United States Senate (OTI 2010). The purely political perspective of this source is supported by references to sources for quotes and official voting records for legislative activity, demonstrating Obama's long-held political stance on the healthcare issue (OTI 2010). The source contains no analysis of this stance, however, leaving others to the explanation.

Some of this explanation is provided by a profile of Barak Obama compiled by the editor of the BBC News service. Obama grew up in a several different countries, including Kenya and Indonesia, where healthcare is not readily available to much of the population, and where medical problems and poverty issues are more widespread and more virulent (BBC 2010). This source identifies Obama's background as key in shaping his values and political opinions, and the validity of the information presented by the rigorous and well-established news organization is further established by the repetition of the same information in other reliable sources and official documentation (BBC 2010). While coming to logical conclusions from the available facts, however, there is no direct substantiation for the claims regarding Obama's motives and influences insofar as his stance on healthcare reform.

Writing for the New York Daily News, Thomas Defrank notes that Obama ignored the advice of many of his staff and colleagues in pushing as hard as he did for reform, putting his own political future in jeopardy by taking the gambles that he did (Defrank 2010). This demonstrates the personal nature of the quest that Obama had for achieving healthcare reform in this country, ensuring that everyone had reliable access to quality care (Defrank 2010). The author cites many individuals and incidents that were likely influential in shaping Obama's vision regarding healthcare reform, but does not demonstrate a causal or substantiated link between these specific identified influences and Obama's actual decisions. This makes his claims at least somewhat if not entirely suspect.

In the online news source Black Voices, Paul Shepard notes that it is largely through his personal charisma and speaking abilities that Obama has been able to push his healthcare legislation through, especially with the voters; he also uses several personal anecdotes during his appeals to people in an effort to persuade them of the necessity and benefit of his healthcare reform plan (Shepard 2010). These conclusions are drawn through direct observation of live speeches and of archived records and footage of similar speeches, retaining a high degree of validity as they are indeed primary and unadulterated/unmediated between their actual occurrence and the author/researcher himself (Shepard 2010). The author leaves out abundant personal information about Obama himself, however, narrowing the scope of this article somewhat further than would be desired.