Health Care Part I – DONE!

A real squeaker with lots of weird maneuverings, but it passed!!!

Oddly enough, I have heard nothing about the historic passage of the ‘‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’’ from my co-workers today. Either they are stunned that it passed or (dare I hope) they are thinking about how this bill may positively affect them. They are southerners and conservatives so they are probably just stunned.

I have downloaded all 2,409 pages in pdf form, and scanned the document for those items that Conservatives said were going to hurt seniors like “Death Panels” a la Sara Palin. I am a senior. I found nothing that would hurt me. I did find this…

‘‘(ii) The proposal shall not include any recommendation to ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums under section 1818, 1818A, or 1839, increase Medicare beneficiary cost sharing (including deductibles, coinsurance, and co-payments), or otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility criteria. 

I am a left leaning independent and I’m not happy with this bill as it stands! It doesn’t go far enough. I can only hope a reasonable congress will tweak and refine to make this legislation better and better for ALL US Citizens. I want my son and my grandchildren to feel the freedom that comes with knowing that they can get medical care if they need it and that they won’t go bankrupt because they got sick. They can have the freedom to be self-employed and still have affordable health care coverage. Now no one can turn them down for a pre-existing condition. I can breathe easier now because being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition.

I will stay tuned…

Massasage? Massa Confusion? Massa Corrupion? Massa Power?

What is in the water in DC? Seemingly “normal” people get elected, then go to Washington DC and become “abnormal”? I guess between the lobbyists, news media, and free meals from local restaurants, our representatives can get an inflated sense of self and an immodest sense of entitlement. Like Leona Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean", they probably refer to their constituents who voted them into office as “the little people”, forgetting that we can also vote them out in the next election. (What Leona reportedly said was, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes...,". Leona was sentenced to 18 months in prison for mail fraud and tax evasion.)

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” - Sir John Dalberg-Acton, April 1887. This statement prompts the question, do we give our representatives too much power over our lives? They now have the power to legislate life and death decisions on our behalf. They declare war, collect taxes, make laws controlling our reproduction, mandate our educational standards, and much more. We have allowed our representatives to decide what is in our best interests without setting limitations on the influence of lobbying groups on their decisions. They have been removed from the everyday drudge of working in the civilian arena so they no longer have a grasp on what “we the people” need or want. They communicate with us by taking polls. Their interpretation of the results of those polls is questionable. We have provided them with a deluxe health care plan so they aren’t really in touch with the lack of affordability of health care for the rest of us. Eric Massa is just a reminder of the unstable nature of our government. He is a symptom. He is not the only one. When we don’t pay attention to symptoms, we can miss a diagnosis of the disease, and without diagnosis and treatment, it WILL get worse.