It would be wonderful
if we could find some way out of the constant bickering in congress over the
Affordable Care Act and take care of the poor people who need their food stamps
and do something about the decaying infrastructure in this country. Somehow our legislators seem paralyzed with
their certainty and are unable to act unless they absolutely get their own
way. There is profound sin in all of
this, some of it on the heads of the people in office and some of it on our own
heads.
I don’t
think that the next election is going to change much of anything at all. We will continue to have an African-American
president, which I think is a large part of the problem. Until the Republicans in congress are able to
get over that stark fact, I don’t think that they will do anything that looks
good for him. Their aim is to destroy
anything that he tries to do. It is a
terrible thing, but I think we are stuck with it.
The sin that
is on all of us is our inability to convey to the congress the magnitude of
their destruction of our country. We
just continue to go on our way and hope against hope that somehow things will
miraculously change. They won’t. We need to make our needs known in absolute
terms to the people in office. How we do
that is something that we need to consider, but it needs to be done.
It has worked
in the past. When Martin Luther King descended on Washington
with the march for freedom that ended with his iconic speech at the Lincoln Memorial,
it changed everything. That was the beginning
of the remarkable effort that ended with the passage of the Civil Rights legislation
that has meant so much to so many in this country. There was a terrible price paid for it. We lost Dr. King and many others to the violence
that preceded this work; but we also gained a great deal.
We need to do
the same thing again. Somehow we need to
impress on the minds of those in congress that we will not tolerate their constant
bickering and delays and that we demand that the laws that we need so desperately
are passed and this country’s problems are adequately addressed.
Hi Rodge - I can't help but notice that this is the second time you've mentioned that the Republican opposition is based largely on racial hatred of the President.
ReplyDeletePerhaps that is true in some parts of the country - I don't know, and it probably is more in some parts than in others.
But to paint all Republicans (which would include me) with the same wide racial paintbrush is hurtful. Most of us just think he and the Democratic party as a whole have some poor policy ideas. For example, most Republicans probably hold the President and Hillary Clinton in the same regard. It's not race, it's policy.
The debate about policy can and should be discussed in a lively manner. But I would hope we could bury the racial aspect of it.
With love,
Mark
Thanks, Mark. I agree that the racial brush is large. My experience with myself is that there is a latent bigotry that has to be reckoned with. In this time, policy has been the weapon that has been used largely by congress to bully Barack Obama into doing what they want to do. Unless the bigotry is dealt with, there will be little or no conversation. The conversation is what will bring us some kind of resolution. 42 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act is upsetting at the least. We need to talk about this, but until we recognize the bigotry at the core, the conversation won't happen.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not convinced that the votes against the Affordable Care Act are based on race at all. It's based on the fact that this Act has the very real potential to be a financial disaster.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, I'm an insurance agent, and we just had a presentation by Blue Shield (which is a not-for-profit company).
The plans that are affordable also have some very large holes in them, such as a $5,000 deductible. Those folks who can only afford the $50-$100 rates these plans offer also cannot afford to pay off a $5,000 deductible. When one of those policyholders goes into the hospital (who can't turn them away because they do have insurance) and then can't afford to pay the bill, who does pay it?
Opposition to this Act has almost always been strictly financial. It is anything but affordable. Yes, it has some good features, in theory, such as guaranteeing coverage to all. However, that comes with a price as well. Here's an example I often use:
Right now, everyone has to have auto insurance, but companies don't have to issue it to you if you have 5 DUI's on your record (at least here in CA). If you're that bad of a driver, you have to go into a specialty product that costs more, because you're a bigger risk. That's what keeps auto insurance affordable for the rest of us.
So it is with health insurance companies, right now. They don't have to issue you a policy if you have preexisting conditions. Those people that do, go into a specialty product that costs more, because their care is going to cost more.
Under the ACA, carriers will have to issue those policies to anyone who applies. So potentially a lot of "bad drivers" are now entering the pool of folks who enjoy relatively affordable health insurance rates. What do you think is going to happen to those rates for everyone, once people with high-cost conditions come into it? The rate increases will be very uncomfortable for many people.
Now, I get that many of these people are sick through no fault of their own, and that their cases in no way correlate to the poor choices that drunken drivers make. But from a financial aspect, the effect is exactly the same. There's really no getting around large rate increases because of this legislation.
You may have noticed in the news that two pieces of the legislation have already been pushed back: the implementation of the employer mandate to offer coverage, and the lowering of the cap on out of pocket expenses. The reasons for both are in part due to politics by the administration. The employer mandate is exceedingly unpopular and a job-killer, while the lower out-of-pocket costs had the potential to drive already escalating premiums through the roof.
Please believe me that if John Wayne and Ronald Reagan themselves had proposed the ACA, that most Republicans would vote against it. It's that bad. Sorry for the length, but it is a complex law.
Mark and dad, have you seen this? It makes excellent points about health care in this country compared to other countries. I'd like to see congress discussing these issues.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.upworthy.com/his-first-4-sentences-are-interesting-the-5th-blew-my-mind-and-made-me-a-little-sick-2
I just watched it. I'm not sure I agree with all his logic, but on the whole it was pretty well thought out. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Heather. I watched the video and I think it is very well presented. I think that his main point - we can't negotiate our health care costs - is valid and is the reason that the Affordable Care Act is a great first step on getting some kind of rein on our health care costs. Simply de-funding it is not an option. The Senate will never pass the bill that the house is offering, or if it does, the president will veto it. We desperately need to get a handle on this problem. If things remain the same, the same forces will continue to build the issue. There is no incentive to lower costs unless someone has the power to regulate. The government has that power, but because of a lot of what I have already said, it is reluctant to use that power.
ReplyDeleteMark, I'm sorry that you are hurt by the racism comments that I have made, but I have seen too much of this to leave it alone. Is Barack Obama a legitimate American citizen? Not according to the "birthers" who insist that he was born in Kenya. Until this racist posturing is removed from the discussion, it will continue to plague us.
We absolutely can negotiate our health care costs. The idea of giving a contract to one company stifles competition during the life of the contract and strikes me very much like a monopoly. I always thought the Democratic party was against those...look at attempts to break up Microsoft and AT&T.
ReplyDeleteOn a personal level, all of the health insurance websites, in their member areas, have "cost estimators" to be used when determining your personal course of care. You enter in your condition or surgery to be done, and it tells you what the estimated costs will be at various facilities in your network. You are then able to decide for yourself where you will be treated.
One of my main problems with the ACA is specifically because it does NOT address health care costs, except in reducing payouts to doctors, which then in turn creates another potential problem - a shortage of doctors.
As far as the racism comment,limiting it to the birthers is much different than the Republicans as a whole. The birthers no more represent the racial sentiments of the party as a whole than Al Sharpton does for the Democrats. Whether it is Obama, Kerry, Hillary Clinton or Pelosi - the ideas are all the same. For a Democrat that I could get behind, look at Brian Schweitzer (former governor of Montana) or Cory Booker (mayor of Newark).
It's not about race, but policy. We've got to stop giving the extremists on either side a disproportionate amount of our attention.