Back from vacation with my Monday column:
You might’ve noticed that I’ve been away on vacation for a couple of weeks, but now that I’m re-entering the atmosphere and catching up with national events, one of the many things that hasn’t changed is the garment rending and disinformation campaigns regarding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Okay, I get it. The Healthcare.gov website is still a little glitchy; there are evidently people who are losing their current health insurance plans; premiums continue to rise; and the Republicans along with irresponsible members of the press are blowing it entirely out proportion.
Enough! In the blitz of strategic outrage and gratuitous piling-on, it’s time to inject some serious and much-needed perspective into this thing.
First, here are several examples of major government endeavors that launched on shaky ground but which eventually became historically monumental achievements. You might remember hearing about the status of the American space program just nine years before NASA went on to successfully land a man on the moon. This is what the space program looked like in 1960, as illustrated in The Right Stuff:
We’re all familiar with NASA’s unrivaled track record in the subsequent 50 years… [CONTINUE READING]