Common Sense: What you guys got on Capital Hill – we want on Main Street!
Posted on 26 August 2009
Common Sense – if it was good enough for Benjamin Franklin, it’s good enough for me. You Senators and Congressmen know damn well what the best health care plan is – you’ve got it for yourselves, and for the Supreme Court and for everyone that works at the White House. All three branches of government set up by our forefathers have single payer health care, sponsored by the government.
And while you Conservative representatives may call it Socialism or Communism or whatever you like – has any of you opted out of the plan? Or you Liberals and Centrists who are still on the fence or scratching your heads about how complicated the whole thing is, was it all that complicated when you signed on that bottom line for you and your families? Why haven’t you been discussing this solution with all of us – daily? Are you afraid we’re going to take it away from you if we understand the truth and don’t get it too?
It’s the only option that makes sense, which is why you all got it and why I want it. Single payer health care.
Or could it possibly be that you all in DC feel superior to us? Or feel that you have a right to something we don’t? Why? Because we elected you? How about some common sense here? Or maybe you’re just greedy.
If it’s any of the above, I suggest you go back to Ben Franklin, see what he’d have to say on the subject. I suspect the word “treason” might come up, given that this government was founded on the concept of the people, by the people and for the people.
Back in Franklin’s day the punishment for treason was hanging for which no amount of health care is helpful. And what was Franklin’s famous saying on that subject? “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Common Sense: let’s not hang anybody (out to dry or otherwise) – single payer health care for all!
2 responses to Common Sense: What you guys got on Capital Hill – we want on Main Street!
I am infuriated by the divisive tactics employed by single payer opponents seeking to marginalize progress into some kind of McCarthy-fueled “socialist” misrepresentation. Single Payer health care, I think, has everything to do with democracy and little to do with socialism. These picket-line criers asset that the new mode of health care will retract all power from the populace and award it to greedy politicians, but isn’t that what is already happening? Adequate insurance is unattainable for many ordinary hard-working citizens and yet, as you point out, those officers elected to protect our civil liberties enjoy the benefits of effective health care while shepherding their constituents onto a bandwagon of fear. It’s counter-intuitive to shy away from progress under the assumption that universal health care will increase the imbalance of power. Already, the average citizen is forced to wade through the mire of corporate health policies while Washington enjoys the single pay luxury, all the while wagging their fingers in choruses of “Thou Shalt Not”. Democracy is intended to ensure that in the event change is needed, We The People retain the right to steer our government in the direction that is most beneficial to us. So let’s not squander the freedoms our constitution was written to defend and let’s instead continue to demand what is logical and proper when a first world nation clings to third-world health practices.
On a related but somewhat separate note, how do you feel about Obama’s initiative to shift health records onto an electronic system? Obviously it’s just one step of many needed to simplify health care and is by no means a cover-all, but it could potentially relieve some of the burdens associated with insurance paper-pushing in the current state. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this seems to be a back burner issue at the moment and I’m confused as to why it hasn’t been more widely discussed in the national arena.
I’m a first-time reader but have enjoyed your posts thus far and plan to return. Thanks, Stephen!
I think electronic records are fine, but finally it’s probably most useful for the corporations that seem to me to control more and more of our government. The issue remains the huge gap between what our representatives believe they are entitled to and what they feel we have a right to have. It is a clear indication that this system is no longer working as our forefathers had wanted, had fought for, had died for. Equally troubling is the fact that most citizens seem to agree. What happened? What went wrong? Most important, how do we fix it – not just the health care issue but, frankly, our own mental health that we, as nation generally, can go along with this without considering what our forefathers considered – rebellion.