Health Care: Treating A Life And Death Situation Like A Mere Political Game

by John Hawkins | September 29, 2009 6:39 pm

I believe that one of the unspoken reasons for the furious tenor of the health care debate has been the profoundly non-serious way the whole issue has been handled by the Democrats.

We’re talking about a government takeover of 1/6 of the US economy — so, this is an issue that will literally affect the lives of every American at some point. The ramifications of what’s done will still be felt 100 years from now in this country.

Yet, despite the gravity of the situation, Barack Obama and the Democrats tried to ram the bill through on a partisan basis with almost no discussion, no reflection, and no debate.

To this day, there has been no serious effort made to work with Republicans on health care. Oh, the Democrats have made an effort to pick off a couple of Republicans on the margins, but there has never been a genuine attempt to work with the Republican Party to get a better bill.

Moreover, despite the fact that this is a massive undertaking that would have to, under any circumstances, create a large number of genuine concerns, there has been no attempt to deal with the issues that have come up. Every concern that has been brought to light has been ignored, mocked, or written off as a lie.

Put simply, whether we’re talking about a person, a business, or a government — no issue of this magnitude should be treated this way. When the American people see cavalier games being played with something that is going to seriously affect their lives and the future of this country, they get upset. Quite frankly, Americans should be angry about how the health care bills have been handled and if they weren’t, it would be an indication that we were becoming completely dysfunctional as a nation.