We’re heading into triple digit territory today. I watered the garden and all my pots, caught a couple of Japanese beetles chewing away on a basil plant, and heard all about the beautiful red fox that was strolling up our hill while Bob was showering. Today is a day to stay home, in the air conditioning, and finish putting napkins away and chairs in their usual spots. To finish reassembling the house, post-party. And to celebrate the SCOTUS decision upholding almost all the principles of the Affordable Care Act.
Why was I nearly crying while listening to Nancy Pelosi talk about Teddy Kennedy? Why did I take this so personally? It’s hard to say. The drunk driver who hit the Flapper head-on in 1949 when I was a baby had no car insurance, it wasn’t mandated back then. And I always thought the analogy for the High Court was more like auto insurance and less like broccoli. Now if a small percentage of the nearly 50 million who are uninsured in this country fail to get health insurance, they will be taxed. OK, and the problem is? Part of being a citizen of these United States is paying your taxes, and did we have a choice when Bush marched us into Iraq? And hearing Mitt talk about not wanting government to come “between you and your doctor,” made me laugh. Don’t the Republicans want exactly that, to mandate ultrasounds and building codes/requlations for out-patient surgeries? To tell doctors they must document a patient’s record in a certain way, to make sure that each patient has been offered the chance to see and listen to a small heartbeat?
It’s Etch a Sketch time again; Govenor Mitt really wanted the individual mandate in MA, but Candidate Mitt wants us to think it’s the end of the world. In fact, for women this is just the beginning since they represent 19 million of the uninsured today. “Up to 10.3 million of the low-income among them will now be covered by Medicaid by 2014 when the law goes into full effect.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/brycecovert/2012/06/28/obamacare-decision-why-women-are-the-big-winners-health-care-supreme-court/
I have to imagine that maybe I would not have been raised by foster parents if our family had not lost everything after my father’s unsuccessful brain surgery and death. If my mother had her extensive physical rehabilitation covered after the accident in our Year of Living Dangerously. And to think that over 60 years later, a devastating diagnosis or an accident could still result in bankruptcy for American families. The rest of the civilized world had some form of universal health care for their citizens by the end of WWII. Maybe that’s why I was crying.
President Obama said yesterday that the ruling was “…a victory for the country, (people would not need to)…hang their fortunes on chance, or fear financial ruin if they became sick.” I truly hope the GOP leadership has some cooler heads going forward, because Mitt, you were right. We don’t want government coming between us and our doctors, just us and our insurance companies. Like the fact that Anthem recently partnered with CVS, what’s that all about? Shouldn’t the FTC look into this? But who am I? I only pay taxes!
Thank you Justice Roberts, for doing the right and proper thing. Thank you for really valuing the American family, in all its myriad forms. I knew that after Gore vs Bush and Citizen’s United you began to see the forest through those tea party trees.
