Back to it

on election day.  I have to admit I’m feeling a bit sick to my stomach, but I hope the dems have countered the foolish tea partiers’ rants and that most of America is still sane.  It’s hard to tell with some of the things I see on TV or read in the paper (whether people are sane in this country).  The pubs definitely are great fear mongerers, and it must be hard on them to see things like Stewart’s rally last weekend in Washington. 

During this campaign and all the accompanying political ads I was pretty shocked to see an ad with a world war II vet protesting health care sponsored by an over-60 group.  He said something about the generation that fought for our freedoms.  I can’t equate freedom with not having healthcare.  Seems we’d be less free if we didn’t have it.  But maybe the dems moved too fast and maybe there are provisions in it that are bad.  I know I haven’t done much research to see the red flags.  But I do believe that in today’s world there is no excuse for every person not to have access to health care via universal coverage.  And universal coverage, in my mind, does not mean that it’s the only the government providing the coverage.  My son, who is in the medical field, told me today he wasn’t sure if he supported this.  He cited the people he sees who come in with an entitlement attitude, who are obese, etc.  He thinks this might further burden an already over-burdened industry (I say industry intentionally) because there would be no controls over who accesses health care that they might not need.  We didn’t get to talk very long about it, so I couldn’t really counter his argument about that.  But his perspective, while perhaps based on ignorance or fear, is probably shared with a lot of people who feel disenfranchised about the democratic processes in this country.  Or confused.  It’s easy for me to sit here and state that I believe every American should have health care insurance that provides adequate health care.  That’s a personal value I have.  But for those who don’t share that value, I ask them to think about what would happen to them if they no longer had coverage and could not afford to get treatment for a chronic or acute health problem.       

As I posted in Facebook today, nothing could be worse than the re-election of George W.  Not even Nixon’s re-election.  Nuff said.

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Posted in The Last Word