A big $&#(*$&#(*$&# deal
And there it is...your Health Care Reform Act of 2010.
Republicans are certainly doing a fantastic job of screaming that the sky is falling...while simultaneously flying above dropping bags of shit from a (probably private, chartered) plane. Taxes on people making $250,000 a year!!!! Insurance Companies can't cancel plans on actual sick people!!! Increased competition in the insurance industry!! Oh, the humanity!!!!
I've been on record that I'm not a big fan of the Senate Bill. Some of the House changes, including the removal of the "Nebraska waiver," are improvements. Primarily, my beef is that the bill doesn't go far enough. We couldn't have a truly public health care option, we were told, because Republicans and Conservative Democrats would block it. Well, surprise, surprise, Republicans and Conservative Democrats didn't vote for the watered down version, either.
The bottom line here is something needed to be done. Small businesses were dropping health care insurance as a benefit all over the nation as prices skyrocketed. The ranks of the uninsured are increasing, not decreasing, daily.
How about those Republicans though! How proud they should be. Sen. McCan't of Arizona and his crews latest vow to say no to everything from the administration from now on notwithstanding, I didn't see a single option presented by the other half of the aisle that would have done anything other than continue the Bush tax cuts that got us partially into this mess. People have a short memory, but the entire economic system of the nation collapsed under the previous, and REPUBLICAN, administration. Why? LACK of government oversight. And now, of course, the McCan'ts are spouting their same old less government nonsense about this bill. Why? Because it's an easy message. It's cheap. The slack jawed yokels who throw racial epithets at Congressmen and call them "baby killers" for trying to provide health care coverage to the uninsured can understand hate speech far easier than a package of insurance reforms.
As I said, I'm not sure this bill has what it takes to truly take care of the issue. But certainly, it has provisions that are a step in the right direction. Also certainly, the cost of doing nothing was greater than the cost of trying something. The Pres. stood on his principles in this regardless of dropping public opinion and for that he should be commended. It is, after all, much easier to espouse hate than it is hope.
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