I am a granola-crunching, free-trade coffee gulping, socially conscious, 70s rock n’ roll Jesus Freak. I am a liberal, in part because I like my politicians honest, and despite Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) outburst during the President’s Address to Congress Sept. 9, Barack Obama hasn’t lied yet. After hearing the partisan fear-mongering spewing from the Republican Party this summer, I’m sad to say that I can’t say the same for them.
As the summer heated up, so did the debate over public option health care — especially when the conservatives ran out of sour lemons at their tea parties and they started crashing the Democrats’ town hall meetings. At an event in New Hampshire and an event in Arizona that President Obama attended to discuss health care, two conservative men showed up with guns.
That extreme behavior is a result of the public fear over health care reform that Republican politicians and talking heads have tapped into. As they demonstrated at President Obama’s speech to Congress Sept. 9, Republican politicians refuse to consider the ideas put forward by Democrats to reform health care.
Instead, Republicans claim that the government will be given the power to deny care to senior citizens, give free health care to illegal immigrants, turn America into a socialist nation, and force everyone into the public option health care. I’d just like to point out that once something is forced, it is no longer an option.
These claims remind me of what George Washington wrote about partisanship in his farewell address: “It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.”
Ultimately, the Republican claims only distract us all from the positive goal of ensuring that the 46.3 million Americans without health care (according to the Census Bureau) do not die from a disease or illness that could have been treated or prevented by seeing a doctor. And Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) explained conservatives’ attitude and motives well when he said, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”
The foundation for their arguments is only “ill-founded jealousies and false alarms,” which only foster enmity between Democrats and Republicans, and may, in fact, foment a riot or even something worse.
I think that the source of contention among the American people springs from the fact that few people have read the bill, and thus even fewer can distinguish between a lie and the truth. So, I endeavored to read the “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.” Two copies of this bill could probably wallpaper the entire Spider Building.
While the public option is outlined in the bill, much of the bill deals with ensuring that existing insurance policies completely cover individuals. It essentially sets a high standard through the public option that all policies must meet.
Title II, Section B of the bill staes that the purpose of the public option is to ensure “choice, competition, and stability of affordable, high quality coverage throughout the United States.” It goes on to note that “In designing the plan, the (Health and Human Services) secretary’s primary responsibility is to create a low-cost plan without compromising quality or access to care.”
The public option is on the table to provide healthy, capitalistic competition for the other insurance companies currently charging high premiums for low quality coverage — and without the public option, all talk of health care reform is meaningless.
Something the late Ted Kennedy wrote about to President Obama in a letter delivered upon his death struck me as interesting to contemplate as the political future of America unfolds: “At stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.”
I think the character of the United States is worth giving some thought to. What kind of America do we live in? What should America look like in the future? And what kind of America am I helping to shape through my political and social ideas? Instead of pledging allegiance to a party’s ideas, I think we should consider the character we are instilling in this country by the opinions that inspire us as a society.
Stephanie England is an English senior and a Mustang Daily political columnist.