Healthcare Reform Railroad

Sunday, March 21, will be a day that will be remembered in history. This is because it is the day that the Congress of the United States decided that the will of the people did not matter any longer. If the leadership wants something, they have proven that they can get it passed and they are not concerned about what they have to do to prevail. A massive health care reform bill that most people neither wanted nor understood was pushed through despite extremely vocal opposition and polls showing that it was unpopular among the people.

 

Now, I won’t make some of the allegations that the conservative commentators and radio hosts have been making, whether or not I believe them. I will ask some basic questions about procedure and prudence. Did the legislators really understand the consequences of their actions? Do they really know what they have brought upon this country?  Why did they decide that taking one sixth of the economy out of the private sector and putting it into the government hands was a great idea? Why, when their stated goal was to ensure that those without health insurance were able to receive it, was it necessary to change everyone’s coverage? If 30 million lack coverage, that’s only 10 percent of the population. 90 percent have some kind of coverage under the current system.

 

A better idea would have been to identify specific areas that needed to be fixed and addressing them one by one. State to state competition, change it. Job to job portability, change it. And so on. But don’t mandate that everyone must have coverage and how much they must have. Figure out a way to offer coverage for those who do not have it now and WANT IT. Make responsible changes, not ram a railroad of new programs, policies, fees and taxes down our throats. That’s not the way America works. It’s broke and now it has to be fixed.