Saturday, August 31, 2019

Things you probably won't find in Michelle Obama's autobiography

There is no way I'm going to buy or read Michelle Obama's new autobiography but here are few things that I'm pretty sure didn't make the final edit.

In 2011 Michelle said:

"The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."

In 2019 Michelle bought a $14 million dollar house.  

Apparently she's not the someone who has to give up a piece of their pie; you are though.

In 2008 Michelle said:

"For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback,"

Michelle was born in 1964 so the following things occurred after she was 20:

1) The US forced the collapse of the Soviet Union which liberated millions
2) The US liberated Kuwait after it had been conquered
3) The Space Shuttle made history
4) The Space Station was built
5) The US sent probes to Mars 
6) The American people joined together after 9/11

Yet the first time Obama was proud of America was when her husband was nominated for the presidency.

Apparently Michelle benefited from the fact that Barack could direct money towards her employer:

In January 2005 Barack Obama was sworn in as a US Senator.
In March 2005 Michelle was promoted by the University of Chicago Hospital to a newly created position, Vice President for Community and External Affairs, and her salary went from $121,910 to $316,962.
In January 2006 Barack requested a $1,000,000 earmark for a new pavilion at the University of Chicago.
On 9 January 2009 Michelle Obama resigned.
On 14 January 2009 the position of Vice President for Community and External Affairs was eliminated.

Can't get a much clearer example of pay to play Chicago style than that.

What did Michelle Obama do that was worth so much money?  She created a program that kept poor people from using the excellent University of Chicago Hospital by directing them to lower quality hospitals.  She initially called her plan the "South Side Health Collaborative" which featured counselors who tried to get low income patients to not go to UC but rather to other hospitals.

Here's what the Chicago Sun Times said at the time:

"Michelle Obama -- currently on unpaid leave from her $317,000-a-year job as a vice president of the prestigious hospital -- helped create the program, which aims to find neighborhood doctors for low-income people who were flooding the emergency room for basic treatment"

""I've heard complaints from a handful of constituents, but I've also had calls from people in the health care profession complaining," said Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, whose 4th Ward is just north of the hospital. "The medical professionals who have come to me are accusing the university of dumping patients on its neighboring institutions"

The Washington Post also wrote about Michelle's plan:

"Quentin Young, a local physician whose five-doctor medical office lists Barack Obama among its patients, said that in past decades the South Side often viewed the institution as a "citadel of exclusion," more interested in research than the well-being of its neighbors. [...]
The hospital told state regulators it spent $10 million on charity care for the poor in fiscal 2007 -- 1.3 percent of its total hospital expenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the bipartisan, nonprofit Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. That is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in Cook County
As a nonprofit, the University of Chicago Medical Center receives annual tax breaks worth nearly five times as much as it spends on charity care, the analysis found."

"Edward Novak, president of Chicago's Sacred Heart Hospital, declined to discuss the center's initiative in particular but dismissed as "bull" attempts to justify such programs as good for patients. "What they're really saying is, 'Don't use our emergency room because it will cost us money, and we don't want the public-aid population,' " 

Michelle Obama worked hard to ensure that poor minorities didn't use the UC Hospital because UC wanted to make money which required that it take care of people with health insurance not Medicare.

Hopefully these facts will give you a more well rounded picture of Michelle Obama than her autobiography alone will.

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