Congressional Republicans don't get it.
They rush, race, hurry, pitch, hurl, speed, and drive themselves like maniacs to reach the finish line on a health care bill,
They rush, race, hurry, pitch, hurl, speed, and drive themselves like maniacs to reach the finish line on a health care bill,
| ...only to find out today that all their like-crazy efforts to get the bill passed have merely gotten them nowhere fast. |  |
 | This they learned with Mitch McConnell's announcement a few hours ago that, for all the huffing and puffing to get the dang bill finished by this week, the much-ballyhooed Senate vote on the bill had to be postponed, |
| ...a maneuver which in the military is called: |  |
But it's probably all for the better, anyway. For the Congressional Republicans, that is. Because the real reason the Senate's health care bill plotzed on its elbow today, the real reason this bill makes even Republican Senators want to gag, is not so much the fact that it's just an awful bill - which it is - but that the American public knows it's an awful bill and the Senate knows that the public knows.
And yet what Congressional Republicans seem not to grasp, what they just don't get, is that the basic flaw with their health care plan, the fundamental reason why it will never, in its present form, go over with the American public, is this: The Republican health care plan is built around the principle of Americans choosing their health insurance plans. But the fact is that Americans don't want to have to chose their health insurance plans.
We don't want to have to make a choice between a cheap, crappy plan that we can afford and a good, expensive plan that we can't; we really don't want to be bothered having to shop around here, there, and everywhere among the fifty states for a decent, affordable insurance plan, trying to figure out all the ifs, ands, buts, and what-have-yous of dozens of different options with different degrees of coverage - who's got time for that? How many people won't even be able to make any sense of the whole jumbled mishmash of choices?
Look, for all our cosmetic and hard-wiring variations, we human beings are all basically the same make and model, made of the same parts and prone to the same occasional malfunctions and break-downs. Sickness and health are fluid states that we all move in and out of. For most of us medical conditions come and go. Today I'm healthy, tomorrow I'm in a car accident. Or I hurt my ACL playing a pick-up soccer game. Or I catch a retrovirus. Or I'm diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. Or I get pregnant, which under the Republican plan is considered a medical condition not required to be covered by an economy insurance plan. But then I get better and I'm healthy again.
The point is, nobody wants to have to choose an insurance plan that won't cover their health care when they need it. And nobody goes without health insurance by choice. And certainly no health care provider wants to have to choose to turn down a patient whose insurance - or lack thereof - won't cover their treatment.
We all - young, old, rich, poor, healthy, not-so-healthy - just want to be able to afford to get the care we need when we're sick or injured, then we want to get better and go on about our lives.
Every other developed country in the world gets this concept and has incorporated into their social fabric a single payer, universal health plan covering all citizens.
Does our Republican Congress really not get this?
Or have their thought processes been short-circuited by an over-load of campaign contributions by the health insurance industry?
And yet what Congressional Republicans seem not to grasp, what they just don't get, is that the basic flaw with their health care plan, the fundamental reason why it will never, in its present form, go over with the American public, is this: The Republican health care plan is built around the principle of Americans choosing their health insurance plans. But the fact is that Americans don't want to have to chose their health insurance plans.
We don't want to have to make a choice between a cheap, crappy plan that we can afford and a good, expensive plan that we can't; we really don't want to be bothered having to shop around here, there, and everywhere among the fifty states for a decent, affordable insurance plan, trying to figure out all the ifs, ands, buts, and what-have-yous of dozens of different options with different degrees of coverage - who's got time for that? How many people won't even be able to make any sense of the whole jumbled mishmash of choices?
Look, for all our cosmetic and hard-wiring variations, we human beings are all basically the same make and model, made of the same parts and prone to the same occasional malfunctions and break-downs. Sickness and health are fluid states that we all move in and out of. For most of us medical conditions come and go. Today I'm healthy, tomorrow I'm in a car accident. Or I hurt my ACL playing a pick-up soccer game. Or I catch a retrovirus. Or I'm diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. Or I get pregnant, which under the Republican plan is considered a medical condition not required to be covered by an economy insurance plan. But then I get better and I'm healthy again.
The point is, nobody wants to have to choose an insurance plan that won't cover their health care when they need it. And nobody goes without health insurance by choice. And certainly no health care provider wants to have to choose to turn down a patient whose insurance - or lack thereof - won't cover their treatment.
We all - young, old, rich, poor, healthy, not-so-healthy - just want to be able to afford to get the care we need when we're sick or injured, then we want to get better and go on about our lives.
Every other developed country in the world gets this concept and has incorporated into their social fabric a single payer, universal health plan covering all citizens.
Does our Republican Congress really not get this?
Or have their thought processes been short-circuited by an over-load of campaign contributions by the health insurance industry?
References:
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/22/gop-health-care-bill-poll-disapproval-239873
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/27/politics/republican-health-care-bill-vote-delayed/index.html
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/22/gop-health-care-bill-poll-disapproval-239873
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/27/politics/republican-health-care-bill-vote-delayed/index.html
| A romantic comedy of errors. Lots and lots of errors. "Equal And Opposite Reactions" is now available in Kindle Edition, and also at http://www.blackrosewriting.com/romance/equalandoppositereactions, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and Gramercy Books in Bexley, Ohio |  |
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