Saturday, September 5, 2009
Health Reform Briefly Revisited
Our senator, Mitch McConnell, was in town the other day, bringing a check for $2-1/2 million from the stimulus bill he voted against. I don't really like Senator McConnell very well. I don't think he feels the same way about me; he doesn't know who I am. Anyway, the Ledger-Independent published a photograph of the senator and the crowd. At the rear stood Ann Johnson holding a sign deriding McConnell's stance on health care reform. Later, a Comment Line caller said Ann should not have done that because it was offensive to Senator McConnell and, after all, he was bringing a check to help restore the Cox Building. We should be (and are) grateful for the check. But I think our senator is a little out of touch. Last week, he said that tax deductions for health insurance and tax-exempt health savings accounts would fix everything. I thought that, by and large, the people without health insurance were poor people, people who frequently have to choose between buying medicine or food. Those people don't pay taxes and so tax deductions won't help them much. Oh, and Senator, if you have to choose between buying food or medicine, you haven't really got any money to put in a health savings account. So much for health reform.
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This appears in the Tuesday, September 08, 2009, Ledger-Independent.
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.cagle.com/2009/09/07/incivilitys-origin/
The Internet, e-mail and blogging kicked rudeness into an even higher gear. A new era of anonymity was unleashed — a new era of nastiness and mean-spiritedness, particularly where politics are concerned.
Which brings us to this summer’s town hall debates.
Many folks have been brimming with passion and discontent about President Obama’s health care reform ideas. They’ve gotten mighty heated at times.
Proponents of Obama’s plan suspect Republican operatives are behind the protests — even though Republicans couldn’t organize their way out of a paper bag.
Proponents suggest that the people standing in the way of “reform” are ill-informed and don’t know what is best for them. But I think the cause of the discontent is simpler than that: technology.
Thanks to technology, average people have access to tremendous amounts of information. Anyone can download the Democrats’ 1,000-plus-page health care reform bill, as I did, and try to comprehend paragraphs such as:
“For purposes of this division, the term ‘affordable credit eligible individual’ means, subject to subsection (b), an individual who is lawfully present in a State in the United States (other than as a nonimmigrant described in a subparagraph though excluding subparagraphs (K), (T), (U) …”
What is more worrisome is that there isn’t really a health care reform plan — just a bunch of ideas, many of them unclear, packed into a massive document.
Nonetheless, President Obama promised it would save money — but the Congressional Budget Office said, flat out, that isn’t so.
He assured us he didn’t want the government to run health care. Then video footage surfaced in which he said he preferred a single-payer system.
People began wondering what other Obama claims just aren’t so.
The lack of clarity unleashed a torrent of information — truth, hyperbole and everything in between.
People attempted to voice their concerns to their representatives but were largely ignored. That’s when they began shouting.
Some say the town hall incivility shows that our republic is broken. Some believe it’s driven by special-interest groups that will gain if Obama fails.
I think technology is the culprit. It allowed people to quickly conclude that Obama’s health care reform strategy is a stinker.
Obama has been hoisted by his own petard.
How rude to do such a thing in public.
©2009 Tom Purcell.
Tom Purcell is a conservative columnist who supplies comments to the Ledger-Independent. He and the person who furnished his comment are clearly entitled to their opinion; and if Tom Purcell's column embodies your view of health reform, by all means, express it as he did.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what O'bama is going to say tomorrow, but I hope at last he'll let us all know what he stands for and why he stands for it. As a senior citizen, I hope whatever passes, if anything does, will improve our access to health care, that it will be better health care, and that it will ensure the country doesn't go bankrupt paying for health care.
Amen
I was so happy to see my friend and fellow democrat, Ann Johnson, proudly holding the sign at the McConnell event in the Ledger Independent. I find it appaulling that someone would be outraged and find it disrespectful at the sight of someone standing up for their beliefs. We have a voice and we need to make it heard, regardless of the means necessary to do so...quite frankly, I wish there had been more signs to send a clear message to Sen. McConnell. I share your dislike for the Senator, not a fan.
ReplyDeleteHow does proposing/supporting a $1 trillion expansion of the federal responsibility for health care expenses NOT move our country closer to bankruptcy? If that's the criteria - I'm afraid logic must follow that one must OPPOSE the Obama concept for health care.
ReplyDelete