Politics make me sick

Dorli Rainey

Is it just me, or does the GOP talking point about intrusive government, excessive taxes and burdensome regulations seem older than the 84-year-old woman pepper-sprayed by police at an Occupy Seattle protest a few nights ago?

President Obama’s health care reform law – known derisively as “Obamacare,” as if the president caring about 47 million Americans who don’t have health insurance is a bad thing – has been under the conservatives’ gun since the moment it was signed into law, which I find somewhat amusing since it didn’t include a public option but its “you must purchase coverage” mandate represented a boon to private insurance companies. Mitt “the Flip-Flopper” Romney, John Boehner, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Ron Paul and other right wing loons have tried to make it a symbol of government overreach and anti-business socialism. (Please forget that Romney approved universal health care for Massachusetts as governor in 2006. That was then and this is now.)

Now comes news that a Gallup survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults found that 47 percent favor repealing health care reform, with 42 percent supporting it. Eleven percent surveyed were mindless idiots who had no opinion.

Interestingly, the survey also found that “50 percent of Americans believe the federal government has a responsibility to make sure everyone has health coverage, compared with 46 percent who do not.”

No contradiction there.

The U.S. Supremes will begin hearing legal arguments next March from 26 states and an independent business group that want Obamacare struck down as unconstitutional. The court is expected to issue its ruling next summer.

Gee, I wonder if the same court that sided with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Rifle Association and the Heritage Foundation in Citizens United v. FEC in deciding that corporations have the same rights as people will support a Democratic president’s attempt to extend health coverage to uninsured Americans in the middle of his re-election campaign. (Actually, former CIGNA executive Wendell Potter, a health care industry expert, predicts the Supremes will uphold Obamacare’s constitutionality.)

I’ve been consistent in my disdain for polls and polling. I don’t think our founders intended for us to formulate public policy based on what a bricklayer in Boston or a hairdresser in Houston think about the issues of the day. Everyone has a right to their opinion, of course, but those opinions are not supposed to determine my happiness or limit my options, just as I can’t force my views down someone else’s throat. I want those who know what they’re talking about to shape government programs, those who’ve studied an issue and gained experience in a particular field, not resentful ignoramuses swayed by superrich puppet masters who use front groups and false advertising to shape public opinion and amass more wealth at our expense.

Speaking of “intrusive government,” how come Obamacare and other programs that help the middle class are “intrusive” but it’s okay for government to control women’s bodies, determine who can and cannot marry, require schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, decide our national motto, bail out the banks and send the police out to rallies to shoot, beat, jail and mace those exercising their constitutional right to peaceful assembly? Talk about intruding.

Supporters of Obamacare – officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – say the law will reduce the soaring growth of health care costs over time and provide medical care to millions of families who currently have no protection. Although I wasn’t its Number One Fan, the legislation was just signed into law in March of last year. So I’m willing to actually give it some time to work before trashing it.

Then again, I’m not a Republican presidential candidate or a member of the 1%.


Sources: Yahoo News, Center for Public Integrity.