Stand firm, President Obama—don’t blink.
You’re doing the right thing, but since you don’t have to fit negotiating into
your busy schedule, this might be a good time to meet with your team, the
Democratic National Committee, Democrats in the House and Senate and find out
where you went wrong; because, if implementation of The Affordable Care Act was
the goal, the Democratic Party dropped the ball and the Tea Party and fellow travelers
were not only allowed to pick it up, but to run the field without interference.
For more than 3 years, hard right
politicians have run ads, written opeds, given interviews, traveled the country
spreading the gospel: Obamacare will not work; Obamacare is bad for you and
your family; Obamacare will make your insurance rates go up; Obamacare will
cause businesses to close; Obamacare will add to the deficit. In the last year
alone, more than 100 million dollars have been spent in the campaign to
overthrow the Affordable Care Act. In a Congress that has not passed any
meaningful legislation since the current members were elected, representatives
have been asked more than 40 times to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act to
no avail. The law has been upheld.
In those same three years, the Democrats
have been so busy rejoicing at having passed the most comprehensive health care act since Medicare and Medicaid in
1965, (and indeed it was worth celebrating)
they seem to have forgotten there was a second act: describing the provisions
of the bill to the people. This almost 2000 page Act was not easily accessible,
either physically or intellectually, even to Members of the House and Senate,
no less the average citizen trying to understand what this new historical law
was going to mean to him/her. By not synthesizing, simplifying, explaining the
new law, Democrats allowed a huge
information vacuum to develop—a void that Republicans were only too willing to
fill with all the creative misinformation at their disposal--the health care
law will ration care-- it provides for “death panels”-- you won’t be able to
keep your own doctor. Republicans know how to “waterboard,” –turn positives to
negatives without losing a drop of water. And “waterboard” they did, filling
the minds of viewers, readers and audiences with doubt and misunderstanding.
This didn’t have to happen. While the radical
right was waging war against Obamacare with the expressed purpose of destroying
it before it began, the government, (after all, a law is administered by the
government) might have issued a pamphlet similar to the one I receive very year
from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; . “Medicare and You,” In
this booklet is all the information a 65 or older person needs to understand
the coverage provided under the Medicare/Medicaid Act of 1965. There is also a
number to call for counseling and assistance, where the phone is manned by functioning human beings..
Workshops, town hall meetings, seminars
should have been held in every state of the union instructing people about the
actual choices they will have, how the registries will work, and what coverage they can expect. Gratifying
as it was to have millions of people jamming the lines and internet connections
on October 1 to learn about the Affordable Health Care Act, wouldn’t it have
been better to have millions of people calling to register because they were
already informed about how the system would work?
If I am ever again to press the “Donate”
button when asked by the Democratic National Committee, they are going to have
to show me just where my money’s going—because, from what I’ve seen in the last
four years, I’m thinking of asking for a refund.
