Ah, nostalgia for the past – Picture a 1950s America, where teens listened to wholesome music and the public applauded a profoundly democratic institution of government. Folks proudly waved their American flag outside their modest homes, next to the yellow flag that orders “don’t tread on me.” A time when innocence precluded the acknowledgement that our country inherently favors industry over the working man, and where those only in the upper echelons of society received the benefits of our resources.
There is a saying that speaks to nostalgia. It says that our hearts have the ability to magnify the good and erase the bad; it is by this artifice that we manage to survive. There is so much conservative banter that speaks to this experience: we remember a time where doctors made house calls and, if you had no money, would let him leave with a bottle of whiskey. Or when “governments stayed out of our lives,” and women stayed home and baked pies and how you fear for this country and for future generations. Now I don’t want to call you a liar, but that’s not at all what it was like, at least not for the majority of Americans. Blacks were lynched and weren’t allowed to pursue the same quality of education as their white counter-parts. Women couldn’t get jobs to support their families and remained dependent on men for survival. All other minority groups, Hispanics, Chinese, homosexuals, I could go on, were politely told by our government that their demands would not be met, and that they would remain second class citizens. Maybe those with this nostalgic memory of “what was” really have conveniently forgotten the harsh reality of our past, because it is an artifice for them to survive. Because the people that are saying this are wealthy white Americans whose survival depends on refusing even basic, fundamental rights to the rest of society.
That’s why conservative Americans are making such a fuss about healthcare. I doubt it’s because they’re like the guy from the Green Mile or Bruce Willis from “Unbreakable” and they never get sick, or because they’re afraid of financially and morally bankrupting this country. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that those against health care reform either
a) don’t understand or haven’t read the actual bill or b) are a part of a faction of conservative society who historically has opposed women’s suffrage, African-American civil rights, the Clean Air Act and Medicare (liberals have worked to achieve these milestones) or c) stand to lose profit in the healthcare industry now that they won’t be able to deny anyone based on gender or a pre-existing condition, and abide by caps on fees.
I just refuse to entertain your arguments that we stand to lose the moral ground in which America stands on, or that the bill will financially bankrupt our country. We spend already 17% of our GDP on healthcare opposed to countries with universal healthcare who pay about half of that. The reforms outlined in the bill address affordable health care and prevent gouging. It’s going to kick-start the economy: no longer will the uninsured have to put away money for medical emergencies or go without consuming during an emergency because they can’t afford it, or go bankrupt because of an tracheotomy or because they needed a new liver. It is SMART economy policy.
Policy Suggestions:
Just two:
1. Dear Teabaggers, wake up, your taxes WERE cut. And go ahead and sign petitions to outlaw the Grand Canyon, Medicare and walking on socialist sidewalks and move over to the grass. Just be careful, it may have been cut by one of those job-stealing, good for nothing Hispanics.
2. Read this article by the Huffington Post which outlines “The Top 18 Immediate Effects of the Health Care Bill.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/22/the-top-18-immediate-effe_n_508315.html
& Read my other post on Healthcare:
http://policysalon.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/health-care-reform-the-last-act/
Tags: Bruce Willis, Green Mile, health care, health care reform, healthcare, Medicaid, Medicare, nostalgia, pre-existing condition, Unbreakable
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