As historians looks back on the legacy of Barack Obama’s presidency, a common theme emerges . . . much ado about nothing.

Look at the deploying of government help in the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Many loans & grants were rolled out to help business & individuals, including unemployment compensation so high that many people made more by not working, which was a tremendous error in judgment that was rectified as of August 2020 as I write this. I agree that there needs to be more done, especially for business, and that may be forthcoming. Maybe a vaccine will arrive that will get the economy back on track soon mainly by at least placing the fear, as it probably won’t eradicate the virus any more than the flu shot does. Hey, I can dream. Various mutations/strains of the 1918 Spanish Flu is still here over 100 years later and still killing hundreds of thousands of people a year, so many we’ll at least just get used to living with it like we do lots of other opportunistic diseases and cancers.

But in the mist of the Great Recession in 2009-13, there was little to no help coming from Washington for Main Street businesses & individuals, only some help for Wall Street, who are behind the very reasons why the Great Recession happened. It wasn’t caused by a real estate bubble — that was just a small part of the crash & that was caused mainly by Wall Street securitizing mortgages & encouraging mortgage companies & banks to make as many mortgages as possible under very suspicious circumstances to people who never should have gotten mortgages. The economy simply healed on its own and it took a good 4 years before anyone much saw any relief at all & a good 7 years before the economy returned to anything resembling normal. Another large part of the cause was insurance companies like AIG selling derivatives which insured against default (credit default swaps) and then losing their shirt when the market tanked and them not having any collateral to back them up.

Obama also didn’t get America out of the Middle East as promised. We’re still there today and there has never been any clear goal under 3 presidents now, one of which was Obama for 8 years. We got Bin Laden under his watch, but that was luck & could’ve happened under any president; Obama wasn’t to congratulate for it. His decision to not provide the body as proof was a poor decision as many Muslims believe he’s still alive & continue to fight under that assumption.

His crowning achievement, the ACA, otherwise known as Obamacare, has been vilified by a large share of America. Many more people are covered by insurance now than before, but it didn’t achieve the goal of full insurance for everyone, as the young people who were needed to make the system work refused coverage and the associated premiums, i.e., the “individual mandate”. Instead, it introduced a large segment of America into the health insurance system who were previously either uninsurable or were “rated” due to their preexisting conditions, which caused all premiums to rise as they couldn’t be charged more than anyone else in their age group. The so-called “catastrophic” coverage that many wealthy people bought along with those not so wealthy who were willing to risk thousands in out of pocket expenses to save money while healthy was forbidden as insurers had to offer policies with less risk to the policyholders, so you lost your liberty to choose your own level of risk.

I agree that all people should have at least basic medical care for either free or for a small fee, which should be supported by tax dollars and by a public premium based upon a percentage of income, like a tax essentially which would take the place of the insurance premium, and it should be administered by private companies who can provide a better level of service and have their profits regulated just like utilities to protect the public from abuses. That is one liberal POV I hold, as a society is only as good as it treats its lowest levels. But the argument to that is this: If you don’t have to take care of yourself in order to get insurance coverage, and you have to pay little or nothing for it, then someone else who’s working hard is paying it for you. You’re also abusing & neglecting your body & allowing yourself to be exposed to sources that cause cancers of all types, liver failure, heart disease, stroke & diabetes, while the rest of us who take care of our bodies have to foot the bill for your recklessness. I also believe that those of us who have money should have the option to get better coverage & better care quickly. The reason many people have money is because they put forth the effort to put themselves in position to make more money, and the reason many people are poor is because of poor life choices and lack of effort. People are not & never will be truly equal because not everybody makes the same effort to succeed. Treating every equally in many cases is an example of socialism, which doesn’t work as it removes the incentive to give that extra effort, which affects all of society when innovation & hard work stop.

Obamacare was a step in the right direction, but a poor step. People should be guaranteed coverage, but they must be allowed to be rated according to their health. Affordable drug options, affordable income-based premiums, allowing people to choose how much risk they’re willing to accept, and requiring some payment from ALL persons of any income bracket, whether it’s a small co-pay in the $25 range for each visit or a small one-time annual or monthly premium.

I believe history will view Obama as a poor & ineffective president, and he’s not even the first black president — he’s only half black.