Health Care Horror Stories Show Republicans on Wrong Side of History
Health insurance companies “cherry picking” who they want to cover, and who they don’t, show Republicans who think they should defeat reform are on the wrong side of history.
The excuses United Healthcare made for not insuring little Aislin Bates shows the decision making process is more arbitrary than this week’s Project Runway winner. Death panels? You’ve got them now - just ask United about their “underwriting standards” and chances are you’ll get about as much solid information as you’d get from quizzing your credit card company about cardholder agreements or the logic behind rates and fees. The answer, in short - THERE ARE NO STANDARDS and WE DECIDE BASED ON PROFITABILITY, NOT HEALTH.
Thirty years after the “Reagan Revolution” proved millions of gullible people thought you could get something for nothing, the chickens have come to roost. Reagan believed smaller government was the answer, and it is - to the prayers of profiteers who could care less about the rest of America in favor of the rich and influential (circles Reagan and many of his followers traveled exclusively). The nonsense of a belief system built solely on so-called “personal responsibility”, and coupled with a fervent denial of the social realities affecting millions, led Reagan to his lowest point - finally, a year before leaving office, he addressed the AIDS crisis for the first time.
After Reagan came Bush, then a brief respite, then more Bush and more denial. So long as the wealthy were protected, given political cover, and shielded from pesky laws meant to protect “them” from “us”, all would be well. To obtain membership in today’s Republican Party, denial as a belief system appears to be a prerequisite. That’s too bad, because there are bright stars in the party, people with good ideas whose moderate voices echo Republicanism of the distant past and whose ideas should be heard. For now, though, denial and the deception it engenders mark Republicans with a red (scarlet?) badge of dishonor. As we learn more about how lopsided health care has become, as we count the dead who could have been saved (and would presumably have been contributing to the tax base), one can’t help but wonder how Republicans can hope to endear themselves to the millions of “have nots” who have proven they know at least one thing - how to vote. The next election may not, after all, follow the traditional trends and favor the party not in the White House. Instead, we could see a few million Republicans turning in their “elephant” labeled voter registration cards for Independent or Democratic ones. Why? Because those without have finally turned a deaf ear to those who have, rejecting the oft-repeated advice that influence only comes with money, power and privilege.
My guess is, the next election will be much the same as the previous two. The worm has turned - and how long the Republican Party remains on the wrong side of history (if it survives at all), will depend a lot on how they face the people who previously have had little say under the eves of the elephant’s big tent.
