Challenge or Pre-Existing Condition?

It’s been 45 years since the moon landing. And it’s been 52 years since President Kennedy challenged the nation to go there and to formulate the NASA program, “Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Watch Bill Whittle’s new Afterburner, ‘Apogee,’ on PJTV. He outlines how America has suffered from hypo-challenge for too long now. We tamed a continent, explored the skies, and went to the moon—all based on challenges that became existential to who we are as a people.

But, as he highlights, what challenges have we faced lately? The biggest push under Obama has been to discuss healthcare at the dinner table.

Where’s the spirit, the drive, of American greatness?

I want to go one step further, and point out that, not only has Obama not been pushing us to achieve more, to achieve higher things, but he has actually been rhetorically casting these pursuits aside.

What is the natural next big challenge? What is the next thing we can achieve that would have people stop in the tracks, and remember exactly where they were when they heard we had achieved it?

I saw an advertisement a few years ago for cancer research, in which they depicted that everyone would stop in the street and look at the news when a cure had been discovered. I think this is accurate. The next great challenge is to cure the diseases that have ailed us for too long—cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, etc.

I know that research is being done on these fronts, and I know that, while substantial progress has been made, ‘cures’ are still a long way off.

While President Obama, and his signature healthcare law, by no means limit the research being done literally. But symbolically is another story.

One of the big pushes under Obamacare is that pre-existing conditions are welcome. Figuratively, this says that ending the pre-existing condition, eliminating the need for treatment, isn’t the goal.

That’s like putting the Civil Rights movement before the Abolitionist movement. Requiring water fountains to permit both slaves and non-slaves to drink is not the primary goal; the primary goal was to end slavery, and then to also fully embody rights for all.

The goal shouldn’t be to allow people with cancer to get insurance cheaper…it should be to cure cancer.

Again, let me be very clear. I am not insinuating that Obama has, in some way, delayed the cure for cancer or other diseases.

But, I am saying that, far from challenging the American people, the way that Kennedy did, Obama has asked us to accept the status quo.

I’m asking that we not settle, that we continue to push for something besides the status quo. Let’s cure cancer in the next decade, and let’s do it because it is very hard to do. Let’s make pre-existing conditions obsolete. Let us do these things because we are Americans, and because we will always astoundingly rise up to meet challenges.