Here on the edge of Silicon Valley we have just had a visit from Barack Obama. His schedule included closed door meetings with the tsars of technology; Jobs (Apple), Zuckerberg (Facebook), and Schmidt (Google). Although the meeting agenda is unknown there is a suspicion in the technosphere that the president is hoping for substantial help […]
Tag: Barack Obama
Vidhya Alakeson on US health reform
As with his presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s approach to health reform will leave little to chance. His strategy for enacting the first major coverage expansion in more than 40 years is starting to take shape. He is building public support for reform early in the hope that it will be enough to counter the opponents of […]
Vidhya Alakeson on Obama’s health team
If, like me, you’re used to a parliamentary system where the party with a majority in Parliament runs the government and, if it has a big enough majority, pushes through its manifesto commitments without too much difficulty, policy making in American can seem utterly chaotic. […]
Tessa Richards: Everyone’s smiling in Washington
In Washington’s elegant Union station Barack Obama’s face shines out from the newspaper stacks and the shops in the concourse are bristling with OB merchandise. I pass on the fridge magnets but I’m tempted by the T-shirts, many of which carry the words “change” and “hope” alongside his smiling portrait. Optimism is in the air […]
Matiram Pun: Obama wins – a pretty optimistic outlook for the world
Kenya’s people have shown an enthusiasm bordering on fanaticism over the US presidential election and declared a national holiday after Barack Obama’s win. But it was not only Kenya and the whole of Africa that showed an interest in the election. The whole world did, because Obama was the outsider’s choice. In Iran, Turkey, and […]
Anna Donald’s American dream
I have just finished sobbing for hours over Barak Obama’s winning the US Presidency. I lived in Boston, Palo Alto (California), and Albany New York as a small child. My father a student on a scholarship, we camped all the way across the country and back. (What possessed my family to go south in summer […]
Vidhya Alakeson on the credit crunch and US health insurance
Banks, insurance companies and home owners have already fallen victim to the US financial crisis. Now healthcare is under fire. Last week, the state of Hawaii announced that it was ending Keiki Care, the only universal health insurance program for children in the United States. In the face of a projected deficit of $900 million […]