Obama

Friday morning got up early to go see Barack Obama speak at Bolingbrook Golf Club.



I haven't been to anything like that before. Wasn't sure if it would be a mixed crowd trying to stir up trouble or what. No ruckus and informative. The Golf Club is super fancy. The Mayor of Bolingbrook (Roger Claar) is Republican, so it was very hospitable for Bolingbrook to host the speaking engagement, and for the Mayor to do the lead in speech and introduce Obama.



He said he did a radio show that morning and were asking him what he thought of Chavez. He said he thought Chavez was a buffoon, but the funny thing is, that we are financing a buffoon through his Citgo gas stations.

He spoke briefly but mostly took questions from the group. He said he was there to hear from the people of the state he represents, to know there concerns and interests.

Medical costs and issues:
(Side note: Obama's wife, Michelle, works at the University of Chicago Hospital, as executive director of community affairs.)
He said he wants better chronic care management, and prevention. For example people with diabetes, it might be better to pay someone to nag them to take their medication rather than have to down the line pay to have their leg amputated. Yeah, we shouldn't have to nag people, they should be responsible for themselves, but fact is, a lot of people aren't and medically can cost a lot of money. He wants medical records to get more high tech, no more paper and pencils, too much room for mistakes that way. He thinks that we can save some money in ways like that.

A holistic doctor asked him about alternative therapies, saying that holistic therapy is currently not covered. He said the medical community has to validate the particular therapies for them to be covered. For example acupuncture, people used to roll their eyes about it, but now over time it has been a proven therapy that works, and now it is covered. So it just takes time, and a record of showing it works to be covered.

He said we need better mental health treatment coverage, specifically for vets. A large number of homeless people are vets, he hopes this can be avoided with mental health treatment.



Education:
He feels our kids are not competing with foreign kids. He went to the Google campus and most of their engineers were foreign. He likes the fact that our businesses are getting the best of the best, and the people from other countries want to work here. But our kids are just not keeping up. His 1st bill was to increase pell grants awards to lower-income students, and didn't get passed.

He feels schools could do more to keep their costs down, they are over building. If they didn't worry about flat screens, gourmet cafeterias, expensively built building additions, they might not need to charge so much.

Illegal immigrants:
People romanticize Ellis Island. At the time we just happened to be expanding and were able to accommodate people. It's different now. People talk about the Mexicans like they used to about the Irish and Italians. Complaining they couldn't speak the language, stealing our jobs, dirty people etc. A large number of countries would come over here if they could, just not as easy as walking across the border for them. People in Africa have a 5 to 10 year waiting list to come here. We can't send the Mexican already here home, that would be heartless, even though it may not be fair to other countries who are going through the proper legal processes. We will probably be building a border wall, which won't really be sufficient just might add an obstacle. (Side note: A lot of people have fake ID's to work here, and therefore are paying social security but then will never be collecting it)
Employers should be responsible for who they hire, but to help them we should have some kind of tamper proof ID.

Troops in Iraq:
Was opposed to the war, but supported our decision. Wants troops pulled out in phases.

Said next week a hot topic would be surveillance. I didn't catch who or what specifically. But he made it sound like the issue was us watching ourselves like for war prisoners. That people would try to spin it as we are more interested in protecting the rights of terrorists, but that really we just need to make sure we got the right guy for the right crime otherwise we will be undermining our own values.

He comes across very humble, sincere and approachable. He never gets over-passioned, keeps a cool head and remains matter-of-fact.