We need to drop the health care mandate

We need to drop the health care mandate

In an open letter, Nicole Bowmer takes on progressive Sen. Jeff Merkley's (D-Ore.) rationale for voting in favor of proposed health care reform.

January 6, 2010

YOU CAN do many things as a politician, Senator Merkley, but I can't in good conscience allow you--as my senator--to give a hypocritical twist to the definition of a right. You voted for a requirement for families--families already struggling to survive--to have yet one more monthly bill to pay. Money that could be essential for food or school supplies or heat on a bitter cold night will now be forced to go to a health insurance company. Notice that this doesn't sound like anything even remotely based in truth, justice, morality, or ethics. That's because it's a requirement! Not a right!

Between the 2008 Presidential election and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality marches, there have been so many comparisons to this being a new civil rights era that I can't help but think of Rosa Parks.

I can't help but think of how different our country would be today if the response in the years following her arrest would have been for Congress and the Johnson Administration to pass the Transit Rider Protection and Affordable Transportation Act. I can't help but think of how maddening it would be today to look back at a letter from an Oregon Senator proclaiming: "And here is the fundamental accomplishment: Because of this bill, riding a bus in the United States of America is no longer a privilege, it is a right."

Yet what if the bill implemented a requirement for everyone without a car--including Rosa Parks--to buy a monthly bus pass? What if the bill left most of the longstanding injustices to continue rotting on the social vine of this country? What if Rosa was still forced to sit in the back? What if bus stops without any white folks waiting to board were still passed by? What if you only needed to ride a bus once per week, but now you were required to buy a monthly pass? "Well, Mrs. Parks, there's a lot this bill doesn't do. We understand there's still rampant discrimination that goes against every semblance of truth, justice, morality, and ethics. But there is also much that is good in this bill. Let's not forget one of my favorites: mothers can now breastfeed their babies on city busses!"

The most forgiving excuse for this so-called accomplishment of a health care reform bill is that progressives are hoping to expedite a revolution of working class families. A revolution of moms and dads who will be forced to file bankruptcy in record numbers when the slow monthly financial drain to health insurance companies leaves nothing in the piggy bank when a major health expense isn't covered by their policy. Yet there's one enormous problem with this scenario: nowhere in any of your oaths of office does it state that you're being paid to bankrupt working class Americans! Nowhere. I checked!

http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/06/drop-the-health-care-mandate

How bright is that?

you know the rest.

than be thought of as a socialist.

the money I would have paid to my insurance company (I'm self employed) to see her. The appointment will cost $340, some tests included. I can't afford a follow up visit, as I've been unemployed for most of the past two years. For those of us who pay for our own insurance; we have huge deductibles to cope with. 10-12k for many. So we'll pay out of pocket for medical treatment ANYWAY unless our bills exceed 12k per year. If I were FORCED to pay for insurance then I wouldn't be seeing the doctor this month. How ironic is that?

focus on regulating insurance companies and leave it at that

The mandate is rank corporatism.

I think we need to drop the health insurance mandate, but I firmly believe we need a mandate to provide health care to all.

in the form of single payer or a national health service.