About Obama and the 7.1 Million or the 17 million insured

Public attention has focused on the sign-up for health insurance by those who bought it on the now-subsidized markets.  That is 7 million now and it is an important accomplishment since most of those were uninsured.  And of those who were insured most of them have gotten subsidies and their health insurance costs have been cut.  American politicians are too timid to celebrate the subsidies, and much too timid to celebrate the 10 million who have been added to the Medicaid roles which now has the "welfare" stigma.

But Barack Obama is proud, not embarrassed because he knows he has helped millions of the poor and nearly poor, and the hard to make ends meet working class. He has been lambasted as weak, as tyrannical, as failing to lead, etc.  But just how did we add 17 mlliont the rolls of the uninsured but by leadership.  Steady, determined leadership.

Frederick Douglas on Lincoln

Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

Barack Obama' on Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln did not simply win a war or hold the Union together. In his unwillingness to demonize those against whom he fought; in his refusal to succumb to either the hatred or self-righteousness that war can unleash; in his ultimate insistence that in the aftermath of war the nation would no longer remain half slave and half free; and his trust in the better angels of our nature - he displayed the wisdom and courage that sets a standard for patriotism (my emphasis).

h/t the impressive Andrew Sprung  xpostfactoid