22 October 2013
The House of Tea Still Promulgates Hate
But, why? It's only because I receive an email citing the results of any voting in Congress that I bothered to pay any attention to the small print about the wording of the final bill for lifting the debt limit and restarting our government functions. Sure enough, not sanguine enough or just nasty enough--you make the call--in the House bill that concurred with the Senate's, there is a swipe at the Affordable Care Act of 2010:
You had better be poor if you purchase subsidized health care insurance, or, or...well, you'd just better be poor. Like any of the public assistance programs intended to help more Americans be able to participate in our consumerist society's basic enjoyments such as eating well, staying healthy and remaining in housing during hard financial times, there is a means test for Obamacare.Republicans gained one small concession in the final package, as the bill also requires the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure it is verifying the income of individuals purchasing subsidized health insurance on its marketplace exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act. Under the 2010 law, exchanges opened for business on Oct. 1. Eighteen of the Senate’s most conservative Republican members voted against the measure.
How dare anyone think that as an American, I might feel entitled to have the best health care resources in my community and to have access to timely, appropriate care. Those dummies in the House, those 144 Republicans who voted against the compromise would let 40 million of their fellow citizens forgo access to a doctor when ill, to vaccines to prevent epidemics of diseases that can wipe out a race and to the medicines their taxes enabled.
If a woman who has raised a family, working hard managing the home and hearth reaches 66 years old and is living on the surviving spouse Social Security, her fixed monthly income might be $950. Out of that income she pays for her food, her rent and not much else. She and her kids had to sell their family home to pay off their father's debts, the outstanding mortgage and all that was left was the car her husband had paid cash for a couple of years back. Now, because of her financial squeeze, the woman applies for Medicaid so she can receive health care. She cannot afford a Medicare Advantage Plan due to the co-payments required for doctor's office visits and prescription medicines. Medicaid is her only hope for health insurance. Her application is denied. Shock! The reason given is that her automobile, her only personal property considered in applying, is worth more than $2,000 which is the upper limit of personal property value allowed. This is the evil of means testing by federal agencies. The VA does the same for veterans to access its health care system and that to me is equally galling.
Without the Affordable Care Act of 2010, this widow's plight is what the 144 Republicans in the House and 18 senators think is okay. That is un-American; it violates our national standards of caring for those in need. We did not ask Haitians if they had insurance or their own money when we sent medical supplies, physicians and nurses there to combat disease and to treat those who were injured in the earthquake. But 162 Congressional delegates decided that it was bad for the country to provide health care for citizens like this imaginary widow.
Restoring our sense of America is no longer a partisan issue. Shaming these politicians is the duty of every voter, of all leaders in the community and nation. They must not go unchallenged for the damage to our economy and to our sense of altruism toward each other.
And I still do not understand why they hate so much.
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