Insurance "Debate"

If the President of the United States tells you to do something, you do it or make your very best effort. Right or wrong, good or bad, President Obama asked our leadership to come up with a plan for "universal" health care for all Americans, so that Americans can enjoy the same basic privilege of every other industrial nation. He outlined the following minimum requirements for this plan to be signed into law.

The Democrats, those of the same party as the President and the party with a majority on both sides of Congress, went to it with relish. They turned in a massive, bloated, and potentially problematic law that may not solve the problem, but at least covered what the President asked for in most ways. By all accounts, they tried to get Republicans to help with the plan and got a little bit of cooperation.

And the Republicans.... did nothing. Well, not nothing. They poo-pooed the plan the Democrats came up with, they poo-pooed the President and the President's proposal. Even after the President came right out and told them, if you have better ideas, we're open to them. Tell us. Prior to, during, and after the speech by the President and the Democrats creation of the bill, the Republicans have consistently and without conscious have lied about what the President said the bill should be and what the Democrats have come up with.

My parents taught me to take active participation in anything that is important to me. In this way, if I have an opinion, I can express it and possibly get my needs addressed in whatever is going on. Oftentimes, by expressing those opinions and needs, I am speaking for those who may not have a voice or feel they can speak up. Oftentimes, expressing these things changes the end result for all, but for the better of the group as a whole.

The Republicans have had every opportunity to be a part of this plan. To provide ideas and to constructively help this country in ways that will be immeasurable down the line to future generations. They have had every chance to look at the plethora of models around the world for universal health care, find the parts they like and are ideologically close to theirs and try to institute them. To come up with their own ideas and work them into the bargain. I'm certain that the Republicans help and ideas would have improved the plan the Democrats came up with in many ways.

Instead, the vast majority of them just want to sit this one out and make disparaging comments about everything and everyone involved. I see nothing constructive or helpful coming from them on this debate.

So, frankly, they must live with what is proposed unless and until they can come up with their own plan. Of course, nothing they come up with on their own will pass Congress without Democratic buy-in, so it seems like working with the Dems instead of against them would be best for both sides.

I used to be a proud Republican. I used to engender most of the party's ideals and beliefs. But the party slowly became exclusionary, ignored the moderates, voted based on hyperbole and fraction, and lied to me and the American people in general so often that I just couldn't align with them any more. Not that the Democrats were any better, mind you, so I disassociated from either party and voted my conscience based on the best information I could find.

The best info I can find on universal health care is that it can and should be cheap, easy, impact taxes and the economy of a national minimally, and should put the care of the individual in the hands of the doctor, not insurance companies. Canada is one of the world's worst models, yet they manage to do most of this. Japan, Germany, France, and other nations are paragons of what universal health care can and should be, and they hit all of these criteria. There are abundant examples of how this process can and should work, how it can be cost-effective, and how to keep the government out of the American people's health business.

Yet the Democrats are making the wheel anew, instead of looking to existing, working examples and modeling after them. The result is a bloated plan that may not serve the public in the best ways possible. The Republicans, meanwhile, are doing nothing except lying to the people, exaggerating the costs and effects, and throwing negativity at it without doing anything at all.

Is this what we deserve from our leadership, America?