POLITICAL ASSUMPTIONS WITH NO REAL UNDERSTANDING BEHIND THEM

The Republicans target the Health Care Bill. ( A BBC headline) It seems they think they can roll back the clock on all bills passed for which they didn't all vote favorably.  It also seems that is not a very democratic way of thinking.

I was struck with that attitude when I heard Representative Phil Roe, a former M.D. from Tennessee.  As a doctor, says he, he thinks it is a terrible bill and went on to say that "We have looked at what we have given but we haven't looked at what we should have taken out". Now the assumption that we 'should have taken something out", before we offer a reasonable solution to the medical problems faced by so many Americans without jobs or ability to pay for medical insurance, boggles my mind.  It uses the same irony as the credit card companies who fine exorbitantly when people have no money to pay their bills; or banks that do the same when someone bounces a check for lack of funds.  It does seem that just shutting off a service with a minimal fine to get it reinstated might be a kinder and more realistic gesture, doesn't it?

There are scales in our lives which must be balanced but this does not seem one of them.  That to give some people medical care, we must take it away from others seems absurd.  He specifically mentioned Medicare and Social Security.  There are certainly not many categories of recipients to anything who need services more.  He would like all entitlements gone, disabled go out and get a job like everyone else? (Especially since not even the able bodied can find jobs right now!)   Is that what he means?  Are we a country who will continue to let our people die while we save lives everywhere else in the world?

Meanwhile, we seem to have found a new Joseph McCarthy in Darrel Issa,  He bears watching carefully and seems to me to be quite dangerous to our democratic way of doing things.