The American Healthcare Act is a trojan horse. It’s snake oil sold by the one of the greatest salesman of the last century. Just being straight forward here, I am not in support of much of anything that the Trump administration has put forward in the last 100 days. Especially this concept of freedom from government oppression—otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act. Aka Obamacare. This bill is nothing more than a tax cut for the wealthy under the guise of giving voters what they want— “Repeal and Replace”. I know that some of you reading this are getting ready to minimize this window, or close out the app. Proceed if you will. In the event you are still reading, I’d appreciate your patience in waiting until the end of this exercise in courage and free thought.
For the last decade or so, we’ve been divided in many ways. So at odds, that to even concede any agreement with the other side is seen as treasonous. We all have had these moments when a loved, or respected one says something so damn wrong or misinformed, and we just sit their silently and take it. There’s the problem right? We are all misinformed by our own bias and alliances and refuse to listen to the other perspective. Fake news and such… So I’m going to not speak in quotes or “facts” because that is useless in the modern debate. I will just think out loud and see where that takes us.
We are all good, to some extent. There are signs of this everyday. Good samaritans helping the stranded. Go Fund Me campaigns to support the sick and needy. The problem with the Great American Healthcare debate is that it has been coopted as an argument of individual liberties. We’ve shed our humanity, and quite frankly our American way. What I hear so often are two arguments from the anti-healthcare lot. I am going to break these down quickly.
One is that Healthcare has always been there for the sick and poor in the form of the Emergency Room. It has all been said before by the left, so I will not bore you with the reasons that this is backwards. I will share why this isn’t practical in terms of how it impacts day to day life. First of all, the middle class doesn’t want to dodge their bills. Any hard working person doesn’t want to be a liability or a freeloader. Often a parent will bypass their checkup, or fight through pain and suffering due to the fact that they know that the bill will be large, and that every cent of their paycheck is allocated to their power bill, or car payment. I’ve personally been there where I will not go to the doctor to get a sore spot on my foot looked at because I can just manage the pain. Now we are all weak when it comes to our loved ones. We opt not to buy the inhaler in hopes that the cough deep in our lungs will work itself out. Or we wait to the next paycheck to buy it. When your child has a deep cough, or your spouse has a high fever— in these moments we are willing to pay the bill. It is often here when we can’t afford the high cost yet we pay. Now, the impoverished and truly poor have Medicaid. Medicaid provides them childcare for their children and will pay for that hospital stay or expensive prescription. Even those “illegals” that have an open wound or broken bone won’t get turned away at the emergency room. Call me what you want, I don't think in a civilized society that sick people should ever be turned away. The more sophisticated debaters on the pro-healthcare-for-all-side will share with you that this is not cost effective. The more flu-inflicted and less “emergency” type situations that visit the Emergency Room the more cost goes up, and will likely be paid by some type of government relief or be absorbed by those that are paying the bills. This is the argument that many anti believers have subscribed to because it makes them feel better. This is the “If they need healthcare, they can get it…” argument. Even though this logic doesn’t hold up and is counter to what so many hardworking Americans would actually do when it comes to what ails them. We push through, and persevere— even when our body is trying to tell us something sinister lies beneath the surface
The less humanitarian approach is to think about the dollar side of it completely. It’s a cold approach to how a government should be run, and what a government is responsible for. I really have trouble understanding this group. They will throw the constitution at you and try to find the most pedantic argument at you to shut you down. It is their belief that Government is responsible for staying out of our way, and at the most— protect us from threats foreign and domestic. To them, any government program is a failed program. I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole. When I think of public health, and the potential threats that can potentially spin out of control I only have to look at history to see there were instances where we needed more funding or research that would have saved more lives. I get it, can our universities and privately funded grants provide some of this research? Sure… I just hope that when history looks back at this time in our lives, those scholars can say we did the right thing. As one of the only civilized societies that doesn’t have government funded healthcare, our decisions (our votes) will be how we are defined. This mentality that we are all in this on our own, and for those that can’t afford quality healthcare (or any for that matter) are unmotivated and unworthy is a moral decision. There is so much government waste, and so much redundancy and lack of scruples in the positions of power (under both parties) that it’s sad to think that there are children that wont receive the treatment they deserve. Their is the single mother that bypasses her annual checkup and fosters her kids before they have a chance to really get to know the sacrifices she made so they could live a normal life up to that point. For every anecdote there is one for the other side, so I will stop.
I’ve faced great moral conundrums in my time. We all have. Sometimes they aren’t so obvious, we just live through it and act accordingly. These defining moments echo throughout our lives. There should be a congruency between our actions and our values. And when there is not, here comes the guilt. This should only happen from time to time. Seldom moments that we all wish we could have back. That fleeting sequence in time where we should’ve stood up for our friend when confronted by a blatant lie. When our pride gets in the way, and we couldn't be honest and admit our failure. In that instance when we were confronted with a wayward opinion, and we didn’t say anything in the spirit of cooperation. We have all been there, and that is okay. The truth that I ground myself in is that almost everyone that is making the decision has no risk of losing their great- healthcare. I have always had healthcare insurance. Not always the greatest, but there. My kids, and family have always had that safety net in the event that arms were broken, or they were sick. I will most likely always had some form of healthcare. In fact, mine will be better than a lot of people that I know and interact with everyday. Yet, I could stand to lose it if we screw this up. So for those of us that are able to vote, or speak up— we should. For those that have the power to cast a vote in our government it is a moral decision, not a financial decision. For those of that are affected by this vote, it will be a financial decision- or already is… Do we pay for that checkup, or medicine? Or do we continue to play Russian Roulette with our lives, and our families? I ask that you listen to your congressman, or senator and hear what he is saying. Because he’s not talking about his healthcare, or what might impact his family. He doesn’t live your life, he has healthcare insurance.
Like I wrote before, congruency in our words and actions matter. It’s easy to take the principled argument of your father, or well respected role model and say that in theory we should all work for everything we get… That is well principled. In fact, I live by that code. I don’t believe in handouts. But life and pursuit of happiness is not a handout. The life of your children is not a handout. It’s a right in the greatest country in the world. So many of us watch our 401k grow at a nominal amount each year, and we are satisfied with that. We scratch by to find money for a birthday gift that our kid wants, but we can’t really afford. We make choices that affect our credit rating and take risks with our money in hopes that a check will clear. This is the life of so many of us, and yet we are not congruent. Some of us even receive handouts from taxpayer funds, yet we don’t see the hypocrisy in it. It’s different right…I don’t say that to be rude, I say that because it’s okay to need help. That is normal.
So, what will it be? Do we allow the snake oil salesman to tell us that we should abandon this idea that our children deserve healthcare? That we don’t deserve the right to see one of America’s great doctors that may or may not have been subsidized to get their license to practice through scholarships and grants? It’s not easy. Like the president said, he didn’t know it was this complicated. I’m not saying that what we have is great, or even good. Let’s put the politics aside and fix it versus blow it up and go back to the good ole days when insurance companies can take your monthly payment yet turn you away when you really need it… We are better than this.
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