The new health care law,
nicknamed Obamacare, has polarized the political opinions of Americans like no
other issue since the Viet Nam War. A poll, conducted right after the Supreme
Court decision that the law was Constitutional, showed that 46% of the
respondents agreed with the decision and 46% disagreed with the decision. In
the Presidential race Barack Obama is counting on the health care law to win
reelection. Mitt Romney is promising that if he wins election he will repeal
the health care law.
I would like to weigh in
with my opinion on the subject. The health care law has many positive aspects. Millions
of people who have no health insurance will now have health insurance. There
are two extremes of this group. On one hand there are people who cannot buy
health insurance because a member of the family has a chronic health condition –
cancer, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, etc. They could not buy
health insurance until now. On the other extreme are healthy adults, many with
comfortable income who are playing the odds. They are betting that the costs of
what medical care they will need is less than the cost of health insurance.
In both cases the average
American who has health care and who pays taxes is the loser. In the case of
those who cannot buy health insurance, after the family finances are ravaged, the
home is foreclosed, and the family is forced into poverty by burgeoning medical
bills, the taxpayers begin picking up a portion of the bills and the hospital
and doctors begin “eating” bills that cannot be paid. The healthy adults who
play the odds are ahead until there is a car accident, a catastrophic illness,
a criminal assault. Then the medical bills wipe out all their assets and they
become a burden to taxpayers who bought health insurance.
The health care law is a
great positive in assuring millions of Americans who were without health
insurance that now they will have it. The law also has a great negative for
many Christians and Jews. The law requires all employers offering health
insurance to include coverage for “preventive health services”. The Department
of Health and Human Services defined this to include contraceptives and abortion-inducing
drugs like the morning-after pill, and even sterilization. To call such
services “preventive health” is to characterize pregnancy as a preventable
disease!Cardinal Timothy Dolan said that government’s actions “struck at the heart of our fundamental right to religious liberty.” A Federal lawsuit has been filed by a number of religious employers including Geneva College. Their suit contends that the HHS mandate will “coerce thousands of religious institutions and individuals to engage in acts they consider sinful and immoral, in violation of their most deeply held religious beliefs.”
(Read “Following The Call of Conscience: The Health Care Controversy and Religious Liberty” by Alan Dowd in ByFaith, Q2.12 No.36)
M frustration is best summed up in SCOTUS Roberts comment in that the Judicial Branch now had to execute the role of what the Legislative Branch should have done. House Speaker Boehner states that this whole Bill must be ripped up by the roots. I argue that until we have a Legislative Branch of Government that can do it's job, and pass a Balanced Budget-- every single one of them are blowing Hot air. I'm still angry that we are forced to vote on a political party as opposed to a Political candidate, and that the sum total of monies spent in Elections, Re-Elections, PAC's and every other Political individual-- the sum total of that money could fund and underwrite this very legislation. People refuse to Vote because it infringes on their Anderson Cooper or Bill O'Reilly time-- they have to tune in to those people to see "HOW SHOULD I PROPERLY THINK? WHAT IS THE CORRECT OPINION?"
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