November 27, 2011

Republicans Vow To Repeal Healthcare Asap

.When the historic health-care act was passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, the Republicans immediately trumpeted the fact than they will be working to repeal it as soon as possible. I assume that will be their main battle cry in the upcoming election. By election time the majority of the people will be glad they can’t have their insurance canceled when they gather sick, that their children are covered until age 26, that benefit caps will be removed from recent policies, that pre-existing conditions will not prevent children from obtaining insurance and that ‘death panels’ do not exist. The non-existence of death panels will no doubt come as a big surprise to Sarah Palin.

Quoting Business Week, “Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, two hours after Obama signed the law, said Republicans would ‘fight until this bill is repealed and replaced with common-sense ideas that solve our problems without dismantling the health-care system we have.’”

When the Free-market Fails to Provide a Solution, Government Must Step In

The Republicans had eight years under George Bush to near up with “common-sense ideas” to fix health-care for all and did nothing. With the exception of enacting the Medicare Drug Program for seniors in 2003, they were not keen in improving the plight of people without health insurance and completely ignored the steadily mounting numbers of people without health insurance, at least 48,000,000. They said they preferred market-based solutions. They worship at the altar of unregulated free enterprise and believe the market will solve all problems. When the free-market fails so miserably to meet the basic health needs of the public, government must step in and remedy the situation.

Instead, the market has given us the most expensive and the least comprehensive health-care system in the developed world. Instead of trying to cover all citizens at reasonable cost, market-driven health-care protected and enhanced the profits of the drug and health insurance companies. When the Medicare drug program was enacted in 2003, the Republican congress prohibited the program from negotiating drug prices as other government agencies did. And they call that common-sense?

The Tea-Baggers want their country back. What country are they talking about? A country where families lose their homes to bankruptcy if they get sick? A country where parents have to ask for donations from the public to be able to have a life-saving operation for their child? A country that is the only one in the developed world that does not provide health-care for all its citizens? The developed world has provided health-care for their citizens for many years. I just heard a speech by President Kennedy relating that fact. He was saying we should do the same.

View Teabaggers Verbally Assaulting a Parkinson’s patient in a Wheelchair.

On the news, I saw a group of Tea-Baggers in Ohio that were yelling insults at a man in a wheelchair with Parkinson’s disease. One man condescendingly threw money at the person. It made me ashamed of my home state. The news video was taken by the Columbus Dispatch. You may view it on this site if you wish. Headonradionetwork.com.

The man did apologize later, but would he have done so if he had not seen himself on national TV mistreating a Parkinson’s patient in a wheelchair? This story of the apology is told by NBC4i.

Have we become so insensitive to plight of our fellow man that we don’t care if they have health-care? Sure it will cost us all more. If insurance companies are forced to assume high-risk patients, they will raise the rates on everyone. That is why we needed a single–payer system such as Medicare for everyone, or at least a public option to provide competition to the health insurance companies. It is not about lowering taxes, it is about doing what is lawful for a change.

Healthcare Program Should be Tweaked, Not Repealed

Parents should not have to sit and watch their children die because they are refused medical insurance. They should not have to advertise in the newspaper that their child needs a life-saving operation and depend on the kindness of strangers to pay for that operation. That is no way for a civilized country to behave, especially a country that brags about being a ‘Christian Nation’ and criticizes other countries for being too secular. That is the height of hypocrisy. The new health program should be a ‘work in progress.’ and be tweaked to improve it, not to repeal it.

Sources:

Edwin Chen and Roger Runningen/“Obama Dares Republicans to Try Repeal of Health Law”/(Update 3)/Business Week

“Teabagger Apologizes for Mocking Man With Parkinson – Sincere or BS/HeadOn Radio Network

NBC4 Staff/”man Apologizes for Behavior at Rally”/NBC4i

Share and Enjoy: