Health Care Howls

The furor over health care stuns me. As a micro-business owner who must forage for her own insurance, I am brutalized by impossible standards for insurability and by premium increases which equaled 50% over the past year-and-a-half. And I am a healthy individual with no ongoing issues, just the normal bumps and bruises. I can only imagine the heartache of those unlucky enough to suffer with ongoing treatment needs due to injury or illness. How can my fellow Americans NOT see the need for reform?

Where is the support from moderate America? It’s partly WHY we voted for Obama, because he promised to champion health care reform when he ran for election. And what is currently proposed is even milder than what he put forward back then. Where is the majority in the middle?

I believe that many of us do agree with the president but are being too quiet about our support, while others are allowing their fears to be stirred by the loud, angry voices of politicos who are not motivated by a desire for our country’s greatest good. Their refrain is fueled by their obsession for riding the wild horse of political power and fanned by their rage at losing those reins, which were ripped from their hands by a public who had had enough of war without sound strategy and economic policies that were rapidly leading our country to ruin.

We must remember that many of the people stirring the pot today are entertainment figures - shock jocks who have basically the same job as Howard Stern, only with more political content. For example, Rush Limbaugh has for years described himself as an entertainer, but people insist on listening to him as though he were a prophet. They forget that if he doesn’t have controversy, he doesn’t have a show. He understands this and admits it, which leaves us no excuse for not understanding and admitting it, too.

We need to ignore these voices. To understand and appreciate what the president intends, we should listen to him with our own ears. We should watch his speeches with our own eyes, so we can judge for ourselves his strategies and plans. And I believe by so doing we can be comforted and encouraged, because his ideas are sound.

Remember, we believed in him 10 months ago. He is the same person today. We can still believe. We must be vocal in our support.