Facebook friends: I have been very disturebed by the frenzy over defunding Obamacare. Here is a column about that THE GOVERNMENT MUST GO ON AND IT WILL It is important to remember when you are up to your ass in alligators that your original intention was to drain the swamp." Anon. It is important to remember that when President Obama took office on January 20, 2009 this country was enmeshed in the largest economic downturn we have experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The new Administration first propped up the US almost bankrupt financial infrastructure, insuring that enough credit would be available to keep the housing market viable and the everyday consumer transaction possible, passed a Stimulus package to kick start the economy, and then bailed out the domestic auto industry. By the late spring 2009 the Obama Administration and the overwhelming Democratic Congress could have focused its attention on any one of a number of issues confronting the still reeling nation. Democratic leaders chose to do a number of needed things - create a new regulatory oversight of Wall Street, protect the environment by fostering scientific greenhouse emission research, raise automobile gas mileage requirements - but they decided to concentrate focus on achieving a Truman era Party goal: expand affordable healthcare to tens of millions of uninsured Americans. They also wanted to eliminate as many glaring problems plaguing the average person in their dealing with the medical insurance industry as possible. In particular Democrats have for decades wanted to end restrictions on health insurance coverage due to pre-existing medical conditions and the dollar limits placed on payments for a chronic health problem. They also wanted children of insured parents to continue to be covered until age 26 and that certain procedures, such as cancer screenings, be provided without charge to the consumer. Obamacare is the result of that effort, the core principles of which were put forward by Senate Republicans in the early Bush Presidency and implemented in Massachusetts under its then Governor Mitt Romney in 2004. Congressional Republicans say they want all these things for the average American, but they think Obamacare which expands government is the road to the end of “freedom.” They have proposed no alternative, and they said the same thing about Medicare in 1967 which is now one of the most cherished governmental programs in existence. We are all fortunate as Americans to live in this country, the most prosperous and most democratically free in world history. But we should not have to be lucky to have health insurance. I am extremely lucky to be married to a retired school teacher who has wonderful health insurance. That should not be a matter of luck, but a right. The US is the only Western industrialized nation that does not have universal health care as a benefit of being a citizen. The biggest reason for someone going bankrupt in this country is unpaid medical bills and this statistic includes those who have some health insurance. Over the last 7 years I have had colon cancer and had my colon removed and also had a heart valve replacement operation. Together as a result of these two medical issues I have spent more than a month in the hospital, including 5 days in ICU in a coma, and have had much follow-up with doctors, a hospital, and cardio rehab. Conservatively, Blue Cross has paid at least $400,000 keeping me alive, kicking, and solvent since 2007. Thank you teacher unions and Blue Cross. But it is not fair, or morally right, that I have had the great benefit of good health insurance and front-of–the-line medical care at little out of pocket cost while hundreds of thousands of your and my relatives, friends, and neighbors with the same medical problems have not been given the same care, have huge medical bills, and/ or most tragically have continuing health problems or have died because of the prohibitive cost of the care they have needed but could not afford. President Obama has repeatedly said, and reiterated over the weekend, that it defies understanding why the Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives are willing, because of an artificial, self inflicted monetary crisis, to shut down the federal government and destroy our world credit standing over the implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act. The law newly insures 20 million of our fellow Americans; will save, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and many independent analysts, tens of billions of tax dollars over the next decade; and was passed in 2010 under the leadership of a President who was handily re-elected. Obamacare is simply not going away. There will undoubtedly be a functioning federal government after October 1, 2013 and the United States will agree to pay its already contracted for debts, but at what cost? This is a fight that has been fought, and lost, by the diehard GOP Right many times in the last 3 years. How many more times must it be fought? Apparently as many times as necessary to give all, not just some, Americans the same protections from the huge costs of health problems. If Congressional Republicans continue to impede the nation’s well-being over ideology then hopefully enough of them will be defeated in 2014 so that the United States can move forward. As I have ended many columns before, one can always hope.
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 15:03:48 +0000