Learn how to fish, Americans.

The other day I happened across one of Obama's numerous televised interviews. At first I was intrigued by the idea of getting a $5000-$7000 tax break. But I ended up listening for a bit about his plan to implement a public health insurance to the American citizens. I may have this wrong, or may be missing details as to how it will actually work (if I am, please forgive me as I just thought I'd share my input and not necessarily my understanding of the plan).

According to what I heard, he mentioned a plan to get the American people to become motivated to find better health plans for themselves with the tax break that the government is planning on giving. Although this has met several obstacles along the way, including critiques from fellow citizens and ridicule from private insurance agencies, Obama seems firm about his stand.

As he described the plan further, he emphasized the idea of getting the American people to WANT to find better plans for themselves and not necessarily mis-use or overuse the government plan. I find his motive, which is to get the American people to think for themselves which Obama concepted as self-ration in terms of health/medical resources, to be truly admirable.

As I have not researched indepth Obama's insurance plan, I will continue no further with a discussion of the idea. However, I would like to turn towards the idea of getting the American people to better themselves, desire better lives and not overuse or mis-use a cheap/free asset. Due to the fact that I have little faith in humanity and believe that the majority of the public will end up mis-using the system, I feel that something that's supposed to help us will end up like so many other systems, i.e. Welfare, Food Stamps, Medicare/Medicaid.

When I discussed Obama's plan with a friend, she said something that made me think: "Obama is trying to get the America people to think for themselves, but because in the past the president has done all the thinking for them, they are clueless when it comes to helping and thinking for themselves."

I believe this to be extremely true. The American people have had a "leader" make the decisions for so long that now that someone who's trying to change things is attempting to allow us to think for ourselves, we are lost.

One thing that stuck in my mind was an answer that Obama gave to one of the audience members who had asked him how she could help Obama change the nation. Instead of mentioning ideas of starting up charities, raising taxes, etc., he simply stated that the best help the American people can offer him is to know what's going on and know the facts. Of course, he does not expect everyone to become an expert in politics, but at the very least know the facts of what's going on (which is actually a little embarrassing since I have not fully learned more about Obama's plans).

But like my friend said, it's time Americans started thinking about what's best for them and their family and stopped overusing/mis-using a system just because it's offered free or cheaper (and by this I mean the majority, not the few individuals who has always done this).

Hopefully, Obama's plan to motivate the American people into motivating the economy will work out. I have little faith in society but I feel that perhaps if this plan pulls through, there will be a big change in how the majority of Americans function. Like the old saying: "Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish..."...Well, you know how it goes.