Health Care

Dear James, Daniel and Emily,

So, the big hurdle is finally passed.  There is still clean up with reconciliation bill, in the Senate, where all good bills go to get watered down or die in committee.  But the bottom line is what was signed today applies some very fundamental rules and rights changes that no matter how hard the Party of No works at it will become part of the fabric.

One of my FB Friends posted a comment: 'Equal Opportunity, not Equal Things' as a response to the passage.  And there has been a tremendous amount of responses along the lines of 'repeal it now, quick, before people learn what they really have' or 'this is a vast governmental intrusion into our lives, violating our constitutional rights'.  And here are my thoughts on those responses.

Constitutional Rights

I find it funny that the same political party that brought us governmentally sanctioned torture and illegal wire tapping should become so vocally concerned with people's individual Constitutional rights.  I guess in their minds it isn't a violation of the Constitution if it can be framed in the "you have 10 seconds to find the bomb" conundrum.  So my response is: "you lost your job and associated health care, your new born child has a congenital heart defect, and no insurance company will cover the immediately necessary surgery, what do you do?"  It's easy and fun to create no win scenarios that make your side look good.

Anyway, back to the Constitution.  I prefer to think that the Framers could have in no way envisioned a world where we had the technology to detect things like Cancer, heart disease etc.  And had they been able to envision that world I think they would have felt that equal access to quaility health care for all citizens would have qualified as one of the fundamental rights.  Technology has changed our world, and what we are able to do medically.  But that doesn't come free.  But a country that truly cares about it's citizens and believes all citizens are equal, gives them the equal access to everything: education, access to facilities, retirement, safety net, and yes health care.

Elections have Consequences

For 6 or 8 years depending on what you were dealing with the bottom line was we had a Republican government, and that meant dealing with what they passed.  If that meant tax cuts for the rich (passed via the big bad reconciliation), violation of constitutional rights in the name of the War on Terror, then we more or less had to deal with it. 

Well the shoe is on the other foot, and the Tea Baggers, Wignuts, Party of No etc. could learn a thing or two about how to deal with being the minority party.  And it doesn't mean: "I'm taking my ball and going home, because you won't play the way I want".

But beyond that, to put a not too fine a point on it: Obama and the Democrats did win in 2008, with a mandate to, among other things, improve and reform Health Care.  And they did just that.  Just like some people declared in 2000 or 2001 that Bush was elected to cut taxes (for the wealthy), and he did it using the same tools the Obama administration had to use for health care.