Healthcare

By: Esther Petersen

I am afraid that we have been proven right.  I have attended five Tea Party type events this year and the theme, for most of the people I talked to was, “it all about control”.  At the very first Tea Party event on April 15th, it was TARP and the Omnibus spending plan that were front and center in the targeted anger.  That is interesting to note as TARP was passed under the leadership of the GOP and Omnibus was under the leadership of the Democrats.  Healthcare reform (or take over) was still on the “far-off” drawing board with Cap and Trade.  Two big, bad, bills looming in, what we hoped, was a very distant future.  If only……..

 Fast forward to the end of September and look at where we are now.  Cap and Trade was rammed through the House of Representatives and the Healthcare legislation has at least four different bills floating around.  “We the People” did our job throughout the summer with our phones calls and emails, and we certainly made our position know loudly and clearly through our unprecedented town hall participation.  Oh yes, we read up on as much as we could, we made no pretences as to our positions, we fought hard all summer, and ended with a massive march on Capitol Hill.    And what has happened since?  Have our Representatives decided to actually listen to us and to do what we demanded of them?  No, they most certainly have not.  In fact, they are now putting a gag order on Humana, a private business, which prevents Humana from passing on information to its customers that is backed up by the CBO!  That is correct!  Humana is not lying to its customers, they are passing on information that has been verified by the Congressional Budget Office, yet the long and ever far reaching arm of the Federal Government has told them to “shut up”. 

 If only that were the only thing that was obscene about the moves made since the August recess.  Now, what is referred to as the Baucus bill will include not only a substantial fee, but possible JAIL TIME for people who do not purchase insurance.  Let us think about that for a moment.  It has been shown through interviews and speeches that President Obama, Representatives Pelosi and Frank, and Senators Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich to name a few, are all supportive of a single payer health system.  The problem is, the American people do not agree.  The American people want healthcare reform not a “government takeover”.  So what is the solution?  Why that is simple, force the public into a single payer system over a period of time and do it by making the current system so obnoxious that people begin to think there is no other option.  Boom, there it is.  They gain full control and we are stuck with it.  If this is not the case then why would they be opposed to the options such as opening up state borders and tort reform that would cost the American public nothing?  Why would they be opposed to free market solutions?  Why would they be opposed to breaking the bill down into much smaller, less intrusive, easier to read bills?  The answer, I am afraid, is becoming more and more obvious.  They do not want to just reform healthcare; they want to completely transform it into something we in this country have never seen before.  They ultimately want to control it, therefore they will not listen to us and reform it slowly with common sense moves.

 What can we do, then?  Are we doomed to accept what they are about to force on us?  I say “NO”.  I say that we must insist that “if” they do what I think they are going to do and use reconciliation to pass this bill, we must demand that the new people we WILL elect in 2010 must immediately begin working to repeal anything that moves healthcare out of our hands and into the hands of the Federal Government.  My friends, I feel we are in for a long fight.  Are you up for it?

 

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