The second act of domestic terrorism I’m going to cite is the current government shut down in the US. Here’s the deal: Obama wins the election. He follows through with his campaign promise to create affordable medical insurance. The bill passes in the house. So what happens? A few extremists say OK we lost the vote so now we are going to hold the country hostage and shut down the government until we overrule the democratic will of the people. That is terrorism.
In a democracy you vote against something and record your dissent if you get out voted. You don’t hold the country hostage by an act of terrorism that damages the economic stability of the nation. I’m not sure where on earth that insane clause comes from but I can’t see it being a part of the constitution. It has to be something new someone just made up because no one has done it before until recently.
The other criminal act that has taken the nation away from a democracy is the new provision that you can have anonymous corporate donors to a politician. That is a crime. It is the opposite of transparency and fiscal accountability. In an era of making trade unions and large corporations document how much they donate to a politicians campaign, these anonymous donations are unlawful and undemocratic.
The Health Care issue in the US is not that simple. There are strengths to the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare", chief of which is the complete elimination under law of insurance companies ability to deny coverage based on something being pre-existing condition. This was/is never an issue under the Canadian system. In the US where Health Care insurance is not government provided, but rather by the employer, people would lose coverage for any health issue they had if they were to change employers. The new employers insurance company would basically say, "Well, anything you have when you apply for coverage with us is a pre-existing condition, so we don't have to cover that." Obviously not a good thing.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the weakness of "Obamacare" is that in the US, healthcare insurance is provided by the employer rather than the government. Small businesses with thin profit margins already cannot afford to provide it, even though the cost is split between them and the employee. As well, the Obama Administration has granted complete exemption from the requirement to provide it to many companies (111 of them at latest count) and the same Congress that passed the Act is also exempt. They get to keep their "gold-plated" health care. The same agency that everyone loves, and which will be responsible for enforcement of the law, the IRS, (no need to worry about where THAT might go, right?) their employees union is exempt. A lot of Unions are. Unions who co-incidentally supported the President in the last election. Except that now the eve of implementation is upon them, they are changing their minds about it.
It would be one thing if it was one law for everyone, but it's not, and that's basically why there is so much objection now to a law that Nancy Pelosi famously said, when asked if she had actually read the bill, "We have to pass this law so we can read what's in it." Why would they be in such a rush to pass something before everyone had a chance to digest the whole thing? (The bill when printed out is a stack of paper a foot thick) Could be that because a few of the things the President said in his big speech about being able to keep your present doctor or your present insurance plan weren't actually true......
Another thing that's not true is that in the US if you don't have health insurance, you're SOL. On the contrary, it's against the law for a hospital not to treat someone who comes to their door. The county hospital where a friend's wife works as an RN operates in the red financially every year primarily because 30% of it's patient load are illegal immigrants who have no legal employment and therefore no health care coverage. Anyone with a lick of sense can see that what is already functionally free healthcare is a big draw. They don't have that in Mexico, you need dialysis there and you're poor, it's a death sentence.
The whole issue is " a dog's dinner", with no easy answer to it. Everyone agrees there need to be improvements, but more and more people are waking up to the fact that The Affordable Care Act isn't necessarily it. And under the American system, "buyer's remorse" is allowed. There is not the same lock step voting as there is in Parliament, members of Congress frequently do not vote their parties line, and no one says they have to. In Canada, any MP who doesn't is in big trouble. The theory is that someone is elected to vote for their constituents before their party. Something a guy named Chuck Cadman knew all about....
dude, I read/enjoyed some of your posts, but on this issue you just come across as a flaming leftist opining on issues you obviously don't understand.
ReplyDeleteWe really need to rise about the ridiculous stereotypes. Was Ron Paul a flaming Leftist? I think not. What the Tea Party is doing right now to shut down the US government because they were outvoted on a bill is wrong. It amounts to domestic terrorism. Obama targeting the Tea Party and every other group that supports the constitution by getting the IRS to put unrealistic demands on them is also wrong. Yet shutting down the government because they were outvoted on a bill is even worse.
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