Jackin4Beats Magazine

The recent economic downturn demands a complete overhaul of healthcare policies. U.S. President Barack Obama seemingly cannot disentangle his administrations health policies from the economic mesh. He began with a White House forum targeting cost-cutting measures for high-priced health care costs. This may be a distant goal to achieve as his predecessors have proven but theres not other way out for the fledgling administration: draw a solution now or suffer major drawbacks in the future.

“Our healthcare costs are exploding our economy,” said Melody Barnes, Obama’s senior domestic policy adviser. “When he talks about getting spending under control … one of the primary things he is focusing on is bringing our healthcare costs under control.”

Tempering healthcare costs, along with other segments receiving a sizeable chunk of budget, seems to be an indispensable tool in cushioning the impact of the global recession. Not that Obama seems to realize this. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who was recently appointed by Obama as health secretary, launched a White House forum with a group of about 120 people comprising doctors, patients, health insurers, and lawmakers to fix U.S. health care. Despite spending about $2.5 trillion each year on healthcare, the government still has to expand its coverage on some 46 million uninsured. Actually they don’t have to, but apparently they want to. Matters are growing even worse as the country is lagging behind other Western countries on indicators such as infant mortality rates and gigantic fatness.

The president earlier promised (he did that a lot) to expand insurance coverage and impose more efficient cost-cutting measures though he has yet to pass a proposal detailing his health care plan to Congress, shockingly enough. Obama is more cautious to avoid what the Clinton administration dealt with in the 1990s when it submitted a detailed healthcare plan to lawmakers. Instead, Obama’s taking the more politically savvy route of saying “change” over and over.

Barnes could not deny the fact that he isnt sending a bill up to the Hill. But this does not end the argument, as he remains optimistic about the administrations handling of the issue. “He’s articulated some of the principles that are important to him, but I think he also strongly believes that to get this done he’s going to have to … be open, pragmatic and listen and engage with Congress to get a bill done,” said Barnes.

To locate the starting point of the healthcare reform, Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease director Kenneth Thorpe hinted at the proposal issued last year by Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus. “That really is the starting point,” he said. “It largely reflects candidate Obama’s healthcare reform proposals.”

Both Obama and Baucus outlined similar principles in their proposals such as better management of life-threatening diseases, effective ways to encourage preventive care, health insurance reform and improvement of healthcare delivery. The Baucus plan, however, took a step further than that of Obamas in terms of its health care expansion. Nevertheless, Baucus still backs up Obamas measures saying that the presidents 2010 budget revealed his very strong commitment” (to bankrupting the United States). He also promised to do all I can to make meaningful comprehensive health reform pass this year just this week.

Not everyone in the White House is pleased with Obamas stillborn healthcare plan. Or with Obama in general, which might have to do with his trillion-dollar shopping spree. Along with some members of the GOP, Edmund Haislmaier, a health care policy expert from Heritage Foundation, claims that the presidents decision to spend $634 billion for healthcare overhaul was a mistake. “He just told every interest group that ‘I’m not really going to reform, I’m just going to expand,’” Haislmaier said.

Personally I didn’t think that they would do it… BUT they did! The New York Post apologized to those offended by a cartoon that critics said was racist because it likened President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee.

The newspaper acknowledged that the cartoon published had drawn controversy because African Americans (Moors) and others saw it as a depiction of President Obama.

“This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize,” the paper said in an editorial on its website headlined “That Cartoon.”

“It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill. Period,“ the paper said.

The cartoon of a policeman shooting an ape played on the real shooting of a pet chimpanzee in Connecticut this week. A police officer in the cartoon says, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

The cartoon ran a day after Obama signed into law the $787 billion economic stimulus that he had strongly promoted. Critics interpreted the cartoon’s dead chimp as a reference to Obama, who became the first black (Moorish) president of the United States on January 20.

Demonstrators led by civil rights activist Al Sharpton chanted “End racism now!” outside the skyscraper headquarters of the newspaper’s parent company in midtown Manhattan. They called for the jailing of Rupert Murdoch, whose international media conglomerate News corp owns the Post.

The newspaper initially defended the cartoon as a parody of Washington politics, but Sharpton said it exploited a potent image in the history of racism towards blacks.

“I guess they thought we were chimpanzees,” Sharpton said. “They will find out we are lions.”

Sharpton said in a statement on Thursday right that groups protesting the cartoon would go ahead with a previously scheduled rally outside the Post on Friday afternoon and decide on a response to the Post editorial.

He added that “though we think it is the right thing for them to apologize to those they offended, they seem to want to blame the offense on those of whom raised the issue, rather than take responsibility for what they did.”

The Post said it was not apologizing to all of its critics.

“There are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past — and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback. To them, no apology is due,” the editorial said.

“Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon — even as the opportunists seek to make it something else,” it said.

Critics said the racist message was clear.

“You would have to be in a time warp or in a whole other world not to know what that means,” said demonstrator Charles Ashley, 25 a model who did not believe the cartoon was an innocent political joke.

Others said it made light of assassinating President Obama, a possibility they said that worries many Americans.

“Just the fact that they put a monkey with gunshot wounds in his chest, it gives the idea of an assassination,” said Peter Aviles, 48, a building superintendent.

Police in Stamford, Connecticut, shot and killed a 200-pound chimpanzee on Monday after the pet nearly killed its owner’s friend and attacked a police car. The chimp, named Travis, had once starred in television commercials and was taking medication for Lyme disease.

My question to you is this… Is this truly an issue that warrants attention form the community? Or is this simply another chance for the Rev. Al Sharpton to soak up some of the rays of the spotlight?

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It would appear that The New York Post is up to their racist antics once again. Most of the world was in shock by a cartoon from famed cartoonist Sean Delonas. His cartoon depicts two police officers – one with his smoking gun drawn and standing over a dead chimpanzee. The one officer says to the other, “Now they’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

The question on the minds around the world is this… Are they referring to the dead chimp as the President of The United States?

The Rev. Al Sharpton had this to say, “Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first Moorish president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder whether the Post cartoonist was inferring that a monkey wrote it?”

If in deed the post is referring to the President as a ape, it would only be fair to say that they are referring to him as a dead ape!

If you wish to voice your opinion on the cartoon, send your emails to letters@nypost.com

Give us your feedback…

Do you feel that the cartoon is calling the President a monkey?

Do you feel that the NY Post needs to be taught a lesson?