It was really only a matter of time before I wrote some godawful-ly long blog ranting about the Health Care Reform Bill that was passed in Congress on Sunday, so since you all were expecting it, what kind of politically minded writer would I be if I dashed your poor hopes & dreams to the jagged rocks and didn't write one? :D
As with anything else that I write/say, please take it with a grain of salt as it is just my opinion (granted, an opinion that has been backed up by hours of studying and observing political analyses, polls, etc., but still an opinion nonetheless).
So, without further ado, and in the words of my dear friend, Mario, here we go...
**NOTE: This should only be read under the extremely unfortunate circumstances that a Socialist form of Health Care Legislation is passed in the United States without the consent of the American people**
My dear readers,
I had severely hoped that this letter would never have to be seen by the likes of your Socialist-ly virgin eyes since I know they have been so long treated to the da Vinci like beauty of a Federal Republic, but, alas, we now live in a time where things like democratic ideals and voters being represented by Congressmen & Senators who actually listen to their constituents (much like the Mullet fad & craze for Beanie Babies) are but fond and distant memories, and because of that, I must write this letter.
I'm writing to you now, not as a Republican, Democrat, Independent, nor Green Party or Tea Party member, but as a concerned American who does not like what she's seeing within the United States government. Why, you may ask, does she not approve of her government's actions? Well, my young rapscallion, this concerned voter has the crazy, head-in-the-clouds notion that elected officials should vote according to the needs and desires of the people that elected them. However, much like her childhood fantasies of becoming a mermaid or owning Disneyland, this too is turning out to be nothing more than a hopeful dream.
All politics aside, here are the facts, dear reader: the current, American health care system is broken, rising insurance premiums are getting out of hand, and too many people are taking advantage of Medicare & Medicaid--systems for which they may not even be paying, but I certainly am. That said, it is important to remember that this less than favorable health care system we currently possess is a "break". Not a cancerous or gang green-infested limb that needs to be hacked off immediately in order to save the entity, but a break. Now, like any fractured foot, arm, or leg, a break takes time to heal, often more time than the injured entity is comfortable with, but I think we can all agree that taking the time and enduring the pain of the healing process makes for a stronger entity in the end.
That is how I think health care should have been handled. Not with an impatient doctor who jumps in to amputate the broken limb and replace it with a robotic one that he had really been hoping to try out cause it's what all the Europeans are doing, & he told his best friends that he would try it out, & did I mention people in Europe have them!!!1!!11!, but with one who is willing to take the time to figure out the best way to heal this fracture according to what the patient wants and needs.
Our elected officials were placed into office for no other reason than to represent and vote on behalf of the constituents that put them there. So when a majority of Americans say that they too do not want their broken limb hacked off & replaced needlessly, the elected officials should do their ONLY JOB and vote accordingly.
But, as stated before, things like this only exist in Missy's dream world. In the real world, over 80% of Americans are content with the health care/insurance they have, and rather than the government taking the time to figure out a way to help regulate insurance companies and cover the remaining minority of Americans without insurance/heath care, they write 1,000+ pg bills that many of them will not read, but will try to shove through Congress as fast as they can.
What's the rush?
Going back to the broken limb analogy...If our patient has a broken foot, but has also been diagnosed with cancer, one would hope that the treatment of the cancer would take presidence to the fracture. With that said, THERE ARE WORSE PROBLEMS PLAGUING AMERICA THAN OUR CURRENT HEALTH CARE SYSTEM!
We are in the middle of a trillion dollar deficit! We are in debt up to our eyebrows and unemployment rates continue to rise, even though our President promised at the beginning of his term that he would help create more jobs. But I suppose that's not saying much since he's also set about half a dozen completely unyielding, totally for-sure-we're-doing-it-this-time dates to remove our troops from Afghanistan. So when he tells us that we get to keep our own insurance plans with this bill or that his Executive Order to strike public funding of abortions from it will stand, we should believe him with unflinching devotion because he is an honest politician, and ALL of is promises in the past have totally been upheld.
Anyways...
Over the past two years, I have had to watch friend after friend and family member after family member lose their homes and jobs, yet this administration dares to put us into even more debt by forcing a TRILLION DOLLAR health care bill on us! And the lie that spending a trillion+ dollars on health care for all Americans will somehow save us money in the long run is complete and utter bullsh*t! (Pardon my French, young readers)
But I digress...
Even if it is only the humble opinion of this writer that the trillion dollar deficit and rising unemployment rates are problems that deserve immediate attention rather than a broken health care system, the majority of Americans have said that they do not want universal health care. Therefore, this should have been reflected in the way that Congress voted, BUT IT WASN'T!
And not only were the constituents who placed these Congressmen in office ignored, but the bill that they didn't want passed is not even constitutional!
Amendment X of the United States Constitution:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
NOWHERE in the Constitution is the federal government delegated the right to force its citizens to buy something whether they want it or not & then penalize them should they choose not to buy it. Yet, according to this bill, non-participating patients who continue to pay for the insurance they currently have (like people, like my family, who are insured through Blue Cross--one of the groups that the gov't will force patients out of-- or any other insurance group with HMO's) will be fined, as well as patients who don't want what the government is forcing them to pay for or would rather pay for more health care than what the government is willing to provide.
UGH!
This whole thing is so infuriating. It is this writer's humble opinion that due to the fact that the wants and needs of the majority of Americans were completely ignored and the fact that this 1000+ page bill (which by the way is so cryptically written that it could very well be selling West Virginia to China to help pay off our debt & our congressmen wouldn't even know because it's so chalk full of double negatives & redirecting clauses) was forced through Congress with such needless haste, that this administration does not, in fact, give a sh*t about helping America's health care system, but cares only about its own party's agenda and the fact that getting Public Health Care has been the long-desired feather in the cap of the Democratic party for years. Not to say that today's Republicans are guilt-free when it comes to being cowardly puppets of the Party rather than the people, but that is a topic that should be saved for another letter.
What's going on right now within our federal government is a mockery of what our legislative system should be, and it is the responsibility of the American public to remind their officials what exactly their jobs entail and who it was that put them in office in the first place.
Alas, I am called away and can write no longer, my dear reader, so I leave you with the hopes and prayers of concerned Americans like myself who beseech you to rise up and refuse to be trampled under such oppressive governmental actions.
Until then,
mjl.
