Get Real America

My friend sent me an editorial from today's on-line edition of the Detroit News regarding the passage of the Health Care Reform.

I acknowledge that there are individual aspects of the law that are certainly problematic and should be revisited soon. Yet, the diatribe is relentless in projecting the demise of our country, our freedom, our bank accounts. The lead to the editorial states that the new law is "one which the people despise....[passed] against the public will" The "public," in fact, wants most of the changes that are included in this law. They just have been primed to distrust and possibly even "despise" "The Obama Health Care Plan." Polls are grossly flawed indicators of all but how a small group responds to carefully biased wording. Above all else and as I have argued for months, the rhetoric before the public has been dominated by the neo-conservative/Republican, purely political agenda of fear-mongering. From the "death panel" assertion to the "baby killer" accusation during yesterday's session in the House and the rabble rousing from the windows of Congress to a crowd below that had already spat on and personally insulted members of Congress, this, rather than truth, has defined the views of many. The only "will" defied by the passage of this law is the will of a political party unable to extricate itself from the legacy of eight years of failed economic and geo-political policies and substantively redefine itself. The vehement attacks on a law that contained some 200 of the Republican offered amendments from committees and was fundamentally very close to an initiative put forth by the Republican Party in a bill back when they were conservatives in deeds as well as words is grossly disingenuous at best.

ALL intelligent, qualified economic experts, it seems to me, agree first, that in a recession as substantial as this legacy of the Bush years, a reasoned, legitimate and, to many, necessary reaction is for government to step in. The single greatest element, by far, of the dangerously rising deficit and national debt is and will, increasingly, be health care costs. All experts knowledgeable of the existing circumstance's seem to agree. Picking at the system would be meaningless. Isolating specific sub-issues (such as pre-existing conditions) would be impossible without correspondingly modifying other aspects of the system that are dependent and directly impacted. It is a bold but necessary effort to bring the system under control. I hope that each political party fights vigorously and directly on substance in the coming months. The "public" approving, as I believe they do, most of the major elements of the law need to be educated about other aspects of the new law that are directed at overall cost reductions and intended to address the long term deficit/debt crisis.

"The bill also stands as the most impactful legislation ever passed without a single vote from the minority party." Those Democrats voting against the bill, to me, evidence a properly functioning political party within which reasonable individuals with reasoned judgment may differ. The fact that not one Republican could apply and assert individual judgment does not manifest the "evil" of the law as much as it evidences a political party void of substance willing to destroy legislative compromise and integrity for the sake of a pure election strategy. They will continue to fight this not with Reason but to gain a "Waterloo" victory destroying the public will and choice of November 2009.

The referenced editorial may be found at http://www.detnews.com/article/20100322/OPINION01/3220350/Editorial--Unpopular-health-bill-no-win-for-country