Death Rattles and Independence

You probably have noticed that I've been silent for over three months. Frankly, I'm disgusted by the political landscape of America. The fish rots from the head down and our head is Donald Trump.

In a few days we will celebrate our independence as a nation. We are 241 years old. At the beginning of any great experiment there is the good, bad and ugly. Haven't we had enough of the bad and ugly?

Our failure in the area of medical care is disgraceful. Many efforts in modern America dating back to President Harry Truman have tried and failed to address this issue, with the exception of Medicare which passed in 1965 under Lyndon B. Johnson, it was passed because he was a master of the legislative process and because enough Americans finally recognized that it was immoral to look the other way at the plight of elderly citizens. The program works and works very well, in spite of those forces who have attacked it non stop since it's passage and continue to do so.

The majority of Americans have gotten and get their medical insurance through their employers. This didn't happen because of the generousity of employers. It happened first and foremost because of unions fighting for it. Other companies that didn't want to deal with unions followed suit and for many occupying higher paying white collar positions their benefits became expected and no one would work in those positions without it. But what about the rest of the population? The self-employed, the working poor and the disenfranchised?

In 2009 President Obama set out to try and do something about. It took over a year and a half but the Affordable Care Act was finally passed. It was a flawed bill that was definitely going to need major adjustments in the future. In spite of the fact that it was not scheduled to become law until 2014, Republicans immediately labeled it a "job killer" and based on that complete fabrication and lying about so called death panels, the Republicans won control of the House. Their party wide mantra became repeal and replace "Obamacare" for seven years. Many Americans believed that Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act were two different things. The Republicans introduced over 200 bills trying to repeal it before it even got going. They demonized it and the Democratic Party under President Obama did a completely inadequate job of explaining the law.

The Affordable Care Act is totally based on the conservative health plan that was circulating in Washington since Richard Nixon was President, he intended to pursue it but his betrayal of the country got in the way. It is the same thing that Newt Gingrich and the Republicans of his day wanted instead of the program advanced by President Bill Clinton that ultimately failed. It would sit idle until Mitt Romney instituted it while he was Governor of Massachusetts.

The A.C.A. is a monumentally flawed piece of legislation but it was signed off on by the American medical industrial complex because they loved it. It broadened their bottom line and gave them more customers. It is collapsing and insurance companies are pulling out of the exchanges not because they now hate it but because of the instability being generated by the uncertainty of what exactly Washington is going to do.

The Republicans got their opportunity to actually fix it and they could do so with the help of Democrats who know it has to be fixed, but they don't want to fix it. They want to give massive tax cuts to the rich and the only way to accomplish it is to repeal and replace with a nasty bill that guts Medicaid and puts more burden on the poor and middle class.

The House Bill cut 900 billion dollars from Medicaid, the Senate Bill cuts 772 billion dollars. Donald Trump celebrated the House Bill and then called it "mean". He praised the Senate Bill then said it had no "heart", will the real Donald Trump please stand up.

Too many Americans do not understand Medicaid and the fact that as an average citizen they will in all likelihood need it at some point in their life. Medicaid is what pays for the majority of people in nursing homes, not Medicare as many think. Medicaid is the final safety net for the working poor and disabled. I have a premium driven insurance that is subsidized by Medicaid, without it I will die, that's not hyperbole, that's just a fact of life, no access to medical care means escalating health problems and grim reaper finality.

We have the highest cost versus poor outcome of any industrialized nation in the world. All first world nations on the planet has a form of single payer national healthcare and they have better outcomes and cheaper costs. They have it for three reasons, 1. They concluded it was a human right, 2. It controls cost, 3. It removed the cost from their private sector industry and made them more competitive in the world market. If as a nation we are so cold and hypocritical as to dismiss the first two, then focus on the third and our almighty worship of the corporate bottom line.

Since 9/11 we have spent trillions of dollars on flat out stupid wars but we pretend we can't afford a single payer health system, which has been proven to be less expensive than what we're currently spending. Trillions in a sixteen year span and we're still not done with those wars. What is wrong with us?