Affordable Care Act Overdue

HR3590-Patient-Protection-and-Affordable-Care-... — HR3590-Patient-Protection-and-Affordable-Care-Act_1 (Photo credit: Obama For America – California)

Sarah Palin is probably right: the passage of the Affordable Care Act by the United States Supreme Court will mobilize the Tea Party Conservatives, and probably others.

The presidential election will be fierce and fiery, more negative than it might have been had the High Court struck down the law, with cries of “socialism” leveled against President Obama.

But in the midst of the sound and the fury, poor people, unemployed people and underemployed people will have access to health care. And for that, I breathe a sigh of relief.

I am beginning to understand what I call the “politics of the fortunate,” the “fortunate” being those lucky enough to have enough resources to live comfortably in this country. In many of their minds, entitlements, including Medicaid, welfare, and other large-scale programs funded by the government to aid the poor allow and encourage people to be lazy and content to allow others to pay for their needs.

What “the fortunate” don’t seem to understand is that while there are certainly people who take advantage of government programs, many people would rather die than take government assistance, yet would probably literally die were not government assistance available for them.

They don’t seem to understand that many of the unemployed are not working because they seriously cannot find a job; they don’t seem to understand that underemployment is as bad as is unemployment in many instances, not providing enough money for employees to adequately take care of themselves and their families.

What they don’t seem to understand is that just because a person is poor does not mean that that person does not deserve to be treated as a human being. People in the 21st century ought not be walking around with cancer that they cannot afford to get treated, or with abscessed teeth because they cannot afford to go to a dentist.

What they don’t seem to understand is that nobody wants to be poor. Nobody wants to struggle financially. And nobody wants to be penalized and be made to feel like they are not worthy of health care just because they are poor.

It feels strange to live in a country where many put more value on the proliferation of military might than on the protection and care-giving of its own citizens. It feels even stranger to be involved in wars that fight for democracy in other lands while democracy here is broken – because, surely, a country that does not take care of its poor is broken.

I have heard people today say that this health care bill converts America into a socialist country. I do not understand, but I am sure it has something to do with the resentment that many have that the poor are being helped along by the government …and by their tax dollars.

If you never see the poor, look into their eyes, see how they live, see what they endure, then it’s easy to be dismissive and critical of their presence. If you have not been unemployed or underemployed, it is, again, easy to make judgments about people who are in those situations, and blame them for their situations.

Sarah Palin, like I said, is probably right. This action by the High Court is going to get the Tea Party boiling mad and energized in their fight against big government.

But as we have big government anyway, much of the recent “bigness” put in place by President Bush, causing us to go into serious debt, I rest a little easier knowing that some of my tax dollars are going to help those who absolutely cannot get out of their economic ruts. Like it or not, that is a reality in America. Perhaps one of the biggest differences between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is that those in the former group are more likely to have help to get out of their ruts, while the have-nots get more and more entrenched in theirs.

All people, wealthy or poor, deserve health care. No human is so poor that he or she deserves to be treated like an object with no feelings and no needs.

A candid observation …

America’s Moral Economy and the Issue of Health Care

I read a story in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/health/oregon-study-reveals-benefits-and-costs-of-insuring-the-uninsured.html?smid=fb-share) about a woman who “shattered” her ankle. Because she did not have health insurance, the emergency room put the ankle in an air cast, but doctors would not perform the surgery she needed. As a result, she “hobbled around in pain” for four years, causing her to gain weight, miss work and suffer other health challenges.

This woman did not live in a Third World country. She lives in the United States.

As the country awaits the United States Supreme Court‘s ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare), I find myself shuddering because I am worried that the Court will rule against the bill and if it does, so many people will again be out of luck.

The health care bill, though unpopular because opponents say it’s government-controlled, really does do some helpful things, like allow children with pre-existing conditions to get health care, children to stay on their parents’ plans until they reach age 26, and will eventually allow anyone with a pre-existing condition to get health care.

If the bill is shot down by the Court, however, all of those really positive gains will be lost.

What gets me is how this nation, which calls itself “the greatest nation in the world,” can live with itself when people like the woman mentioned at the beginning of this piece are walking around in pain in spite of our “greatest health-care-system-in-the-world” claim. How can any system be that great when the very people who need it most are shut out?

By now, people have heard of tragedies like children, primarily poor children, dying from such fixable ailments as an impacted tooth. Without health care, these children cannot afford the most basic of care, which also for them happens, many times, to be life-saving. Children and adults have been cut off from receiving necessary chemo-therapy or other treatments when Medicaid has refused to cover such treatment. Can this really be the reality of the so-called “greatest” nation?

Not having health insurance keeps some people from even seeking the care and treatment they need. In the same New York Times article, a woman, 24 years old, was said to be suffering from depression and C

rohn’s disease, but also for stage 2 cervical cancer – for which she cannot afford treatment.

In Oregon, there has been created a lottery where people can “win” health care through the lottery system. Because of that, some people now have health care. The article is lifting up alternatives to the present health care system, where so many people are left out and is also presenting the benefits and cost of insuring previously uninsured people. The lottery, by allowing people to “win” health care, is apparently a win-win situation for the state and for the “newly insured,” who are getting better care and are cutting health costs in other areas.

That some states are looking for alternatives to our present system is a comfort, but that the federal government is not so supportive of a health care system that takes care of more Americans is troubling. We as a nation seem to have little time or patience for those who are poor and who depend on the government for help. There is a moral economy here that is not working, but the federal government and too many state governments seem unable and unwilling to look at that issue.

In effect, not providing the poor, the unemployed and underemployed with viable health care seems to be immoral, in a country which touts itself as a moral leader in and of the world. I don’t think a nation can be “moral” and not only blame “the least of these” for their predicaments, but also ignore them as much as possible.

I would bet that the nation’s highest court would not agree with me, but we will see, sooner rather than later.

For the sake of people like the 24-year-old woman who is walking around without getting treatment for serious illnesses and diseases, I hope I am wrong. No nation can afford to ignore its masses, our nation included.

A candid observation …

Voting for Obama

I got the most interesting letter in the mail today. It was from a woman whom I do not know; she included in the envelope a piece written about President Obama by Ed Lasky entitled, “The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House.” The article was, of course, in reference to Ed Klein‘s new book by the same title.

The woman typed, “I doubt that you will read this, but really, you should. Then you will understand we have reasons NOT to vote for this man, then and now, and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with race.”

In her letter, she excoriated the president for his policies; “with all due respect,” she wrote, “poverty, education costs, affordable housing and unemployment have all been made WORSE by President Obama.” She wrote that President Obama and the Democrats “forced Obamacare on this nation against the will of the people”…and accused me and others of voting for the president only because he is black…and those of us who did that, she said, “are racist.”

She angrily says people have “acquiesced to the gay marriage issue because you don’t want to lose all of the “free” stuff you get from the Democrats! You are willing to let this President and the liberals throw away the foundation of societal structure we’ve known for thousands of years (sic) to get more free stuff???? I am outraged!” she wrote.

Well, now.

I think she’s right: things have gotten worse since the president took office, but not only because of his policies. I think “the Congress of no” has had a lot to do with where we are and are not. The economy was in free fall when Mr. Obama came into office, because of the policies of President Bush. President Obama had the unsavory task of trying to get the lumps out of the gravy, so to speak, and his job was made all the more difficult by a Congress which has refused to work with him.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why people say that President Obama has been against big business. It seems to me, with all the bailing out of banks “too big to fail” that the president made their lives pretty comfortable, so much so that they have gone back to operating pretty much in the way that helped get us into this mess. The President has done some spending that jacked up the deficit – to save and to protect people who were out of work with no income at all. They needed to survive and there were no jobs. One might not like that fact, but it was and is the truth.

The President has scurried to help the “new poor,” as the middle class, as we have always known it, has continually diminished. While bank executives have gotten huge bonuses, people who used to be comfortable are now scrambling to survive – hence, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. The chasm between the “haves” and the “have-nots” has only widened – that, too, under Mr. Obama’s presidency.

The woman who wrote me criticized black people for always voting for Democrats. She notes that Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” has only managed to reduce poverty by 4 percent, after spending $16 trillion. That is quite definitely a sorry report …but has Ronald Reagan’s policy of “trickle down economics” helped the poor and “the least of these?” The spirit of the letter is that if we blacks would get our heads out of the sand and stop voting for Democrats, the country would be better off…but we are unable to see or understand that.

The truth is, people vote for the party they perceive to have their interests at heart. It does not appear, nor has it appeared to have been the case in a long time, that Republicans have the interest of black, brown and poor people…at heart. If you look at the recent Republican campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, none of the candidates seemed particularly interested in the plights of black, brown and poor people. Heck, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich basically said that black people want to be on welfare. Their presidencies, they promised, would create a world where black people had jobs. That would be nice – and it would be nice if the jobs were more than menial jobs, so those working could support their families, but alas, history has shown that Republicans have not appeared to be all that interested in creating an America with a more level playing field; Republicans have sort of blamed the victims of discrimination for their plight.

That’s like blaming a rape victim for being raped.

That’s not to say that there haven’t been some good things done by Republicans for black and brown people (not so much poor people…) The most obvious feather for the Republicans is Abraham Lincoln. President Eisenhower mandated that segregation in federal employment be ended,but come on, have Republicans really showed much heart or concern for any group other than white people? It wasn’t a Republican, but a Democrat, Harry Truman, who made the United States military desegregate. If the truth be told, both Republicans and Democrats alike have been pretty silent on the conditions that help keep black, brown and poor people in the status of second-class citizens. Neither a Republican nor a Democrat got legislation passed that outlawed lynching. Historically, in spite of laws mandating integration of schools, for example, or outlawing segregation of the military, people, Republican and Democrat, have found ways to get around the laws and keep things “as they have always been.”

It was probably Franklin Delano Roosevelt who started the love affair between African-Americans and the Democrats, with his New Deal. If that period of history is examined closely, we can see that it wasn’t all that “new” or a good “deal” for many blacks, but there were enough blacks helped that it gave the perception that Democrats care about them. All people, no matter color, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender, want and need to feel like their government cares about them.

I will vote for Mr. Obama not because he is black but because I have more faith that he cares about me, an African-American woman, and my children, and all black, brown and poor people than I have that faith about Mr. Romney. I do not think Mr. Romney is a bad man. He is obviously a brilliant and talented businessman. But at the end of the day, there are more than successful white businessmen who make up America. There are 46 million poor people. There are women and Hispanics and Muslims and black people…who need to be considered and cared for. There are people who cannot pay their rent or mortgages and do not want welfare or food stamps, but want a viable job with a working wage. There are people who need the government to step up for all of the people, not just some of the people, as has been the case with both Republican and Democratic presidents.

This is not about race. This is about human dignity.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said that civil unrest has always erupted when people have felt humiliated. It’s not been poverty or even racism that has made tempers explode; it has been the perception that they has a people have been humiliated one time too many. Blacks, he said, have adjusted to being terrorized in this country…but even those who have adjusted, just to get by, have a breaking point.

I am voting for President Obama because I don’t want people to get to a breaking point. The lady who wrote me, ironically, worries about “riots in the streets” like there’s been in Greece. We are worried about the same thing, but for different reasons.

I am not sure President Obama or Mitt Romney can quell the unrest that is simmering in this country, but for me, I’ll put my money on the president.

A candid observation …

The Consistency of Discrimination

Discrimination is a remarkably consistent phenomenon.

In the area of racial discrimination, history shows that blacks were tolerated as long as they stayed “in their place.” Because of the assumed second-class citizenship of African-Americans, whites felt justified in treating them as such, even though many said they “loved” their “nigras.”‘ Nobody, however, wanted an “uppity” Negro; blacks couldn’t hide who they were by virtue of the color of their skin, so they had no choice but to learn how to survive and “stay in their place.”

For gays and lesbians, and indeed people of the LGBT community in general, there has been, again, a feeling that “they” are all right as long as they stay in their place. In the black church, that “place” has historically been in the role of musician – either choir director or accompanist or both. People in these positions might be noticeably gay, but no person in the church would say anything; they were “in their place,” and therefore, tolerable.

But let a member of the LGBT community try to step out of that prescriptive place, and, say, try to work as Director of Christian Education, or perhaps as a Sunday School teacher, deep protest, borne out of deep bias against gays and lesbians, would rise like a phoenix out of the ashes of scriptural righteousness. All of a sudden, “what was right was wrong,” meaning, it was all right for a gay person to be an amazing musician, but it was blasphemous and unconscionable that a person might want to do anything else.

Women in the black church have always had their “place.” Though the majority of membership of most churches tends to be female, the church is still a bastion of male supremacy…and so a woman might be a “deaconess” or she might be relegated to teaching Sunday School or changing the flowers on the altar, but preaching and being a pastor was a no-no. Such a woman had …stepped out of her place.

Older people have their “place.” Employers, too many of them, will look at a person’s age and without even thinking about it, discard him or her as a viable new employee. Old people are OK if they (we!) stay in their place, and their place, apparently, is out of sight, out of mind. Age discrimination is rampant, but we really don’t want to talk about it.

As the comments, commentaries and conversations have escalated since President Obama made his statement in support of gay marriage, I began to think about how successful discrimination depends not only upon the beliefs and determination of another’s status of those who oppress but upon acceptance of that relegation on the part of the oppressed. Discrimination is rather cowardly; it bullies people, but the bullying stops or abates when those being bullied say “enough.”

In the instance of African-Americans and women, the discrimination and relegation to the “back of the bus” has eased up some because people in those groups have pushed back. They have refused to stay “in their place.” Women and members of the LGBT community, I think, learned much about how to push back against discrimination by watching African-Americans fight for their rights and thus, the feminist and womanist movements changed the lives of women, and the movement for LGBT rights is changing not only the lives of people of that community but also lives of people who have nestled in and taken comfort in their ability to discriminate.

Stepping out of one’s “place” is risky and painful; power concedes nothing without a struggle and the power that has always been fights against the power that is fighting “to be.” But once someone realizes that the place someone else has relegated to him or her is not all there is and does not have to be permanent if one realizes his or her own worth, in spite of what the common opinion is, the mere urge for a new life and a new reality creates a power that cannot be stopped.

I am guilty of being an idealist; I wish we as humans did not have the capacity to discriminate against each other so easily, but discrimination is not going to end. Perhaps, though, if we understand how consistent are the principles that feed discriminatory behavior, there might be less of it as time goes on, leaving room for people to be who God created them to be, without all the drama.

A candid observation…

The President and his Evolution

Much has been made of President Obama’s “evolution” as concerns his belief that same-sex marriages ought to be allowed.

What is the big deal? All of us have evolved when it comes to this issue.

We grew up, even same-gender loving people, in a society where homosexuality was nearly universally decried as the most horrible thing in the world. We grew up where in a time where families either kept the reality of a homosexual child a secret, or where families disowned their own children when their homosexuality was revealed.

We grew up during a time where some of our parents were homosexual but didn’t dare mention or admit it.

Ours was a time where homosexual individuals kept their sexuality a secret, many marrying and having children, not daring to “come out.” People in the highest places were rumored to be gay, but nobody dared admit it publicly.

We grew up in a time where it was not unusual to hear homosexuals referred to as “fags” or worse. Bullying of gay people was accepted and generally ignored. Ours was a time when even the youngest children, who realized they were gay, chose to live lives of quiet desperation rather than lose friends and family.

And we grew up in a time when religion participated in the cover-up.

The quiet and steady persistence of gay individuals, pushing for their right to exist as full-fledged Americans, with all of the liberties and rights accorded to American citizens, has brought us to this day. The LGBT community, in spite of being deeply hurt and discriminated against, pushed against the Goliath called homophobia, and brought an awareness to our society that our society had long run from. And as they have pushed, Americans have “evolved” in their thinking.

There was a time when the killing of gay people was not really a big thing, and the suicides of gays was not much talked about. There was only moderate outrage over the murder of Matthew Shepard. It was OK to discriminate against gays in employment; openly gay children were kept out of camps, out of school activities …and nobody said a thing. Many churches have been unflinching in their hatred of gays (though they will not say it’s hatred), reminding gay individuals that they, according to the Bible, are an “abomination” to God.

Some people participated fully in the horrific treatment of gays, and others were silent. They were “evolving.” They were considering not only their own beliefs, but how their lives would be impacted if they stepped up and said something to the effect that such treatment of fellow human being was, well, just wrong.

And now, those who have “evolved” – and that would be all of us – are speaking up and speaking out.

President Obama, I believe, did the right thing by stating his support of gay marriage. He did not say he was making if a federal policy; he is leaving the decision of whether or not a state will allow gay marriage up to the states – but he was absolutely right in what he did. He is a public servant, not a pastor. He is bound to live by and follow the U.S. Constitution and our other illustrious documents, which say that “all men are created equal.” Those words have been at the base of getting rights for African-Americans, women, and other groups who have been discriminated against by government. Government is supposed to be “of the people, by the people and for the people,” and the president did exactly as he should have as the highest ranking and most powerful public servant in this country, and the most powerful man in the world.

In our history, too many presidents have been mum on issues of discrimination – racial, sexual and otherwise. They have been politicians par excellence, and have put the desire for votes above and ahead of their duty to make life more equitable and bearable for all Americans.

This president has stepped up. What he did was morally right. What he said does not, will not and should not change one’s theology; theological beliefs come from a different source, as well they should. But what he said has made a group of people who have too long been discriminated against feel their validity and value as Americans is finally being recognized.

This is “change.” Some can believe in it, and some cannot, but that’s the nature of change.

A candid observation.

Wikipedia: LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to the “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender” community. →