It may come as shocking news to many conservatives, but according to the Declaration of Independence – a document that embodies the essence of what this nation is all about and serves as the foundation for our Constitution — “The Pursuit of Happiness” is one of the three explicitly declared “unalienable Rights,” endowed no less by the Creator upon the People, on absolute par with the right to Life and the right to Liberty. ((“Text to the Declaration of Independence.”))
What may also come as a surprise to them is that the fact that these three rights are fundamental is deemed by that same document to be itself a “self-evident” truth.
And, to top it off, the document declared that equally “self-evident” is that “Governments are instituted among Men” for securing these three self-evident rights.
Now, given that happiness cannot be pursued unless one has his or health secured, as much as one would need their Life and their Liberty secured by law and policy, it goes without saying that Government is fundamentally obligated to guarantee the People a minimum of healthcare, just as it is fundamentally obligated to guarantee the People their life and their liberty.
I make these obvious observations simply to point out that the seemingly “principled” platform upon which the GOP has been waging its pitched and passionate battles against healthcare reform is far from sturdy and in fact can easily be demolished by pointing out that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, in letter and in spirit, refute directly and indirectly the twin ideological pillars upon which all GOP talking points have been based. Healthcare is indeed a fundamental right and not a mere privilege, and the Government is not only within its right, but is obligated to step in and protect and defend the People, and is as such obligated because to do so is to fulfill one of the very basic reasons that justify its existence and arrogation.
So, Welcome to the 20th Century, America — or, rather: glad to see you are making the first step towards catching up with what the rest of the world has deemed a basic right for a multitude of decades.
Stunning fact number one is that merely being able to bring the healthcare bill to the Senate floor to debate has, amazingly, required a pitched battle, with last minute suspense and drama. If memory serves me right, it didn’t occur to anyone back in 1994 to block debate on the Senate floor during the Clinton healthcare reform. It was thought back then — and it does seem like a long, long time ago — to be fundamentally undemocratic to mobilize explicitly and openly to kill not just the bill but a debate over the bill. Nowadays, such openly undemocratic moves are not only deemed business as usually, but are proudly launched and pursued by the GOP as obviously morally justified. Well – all I have to say is, thank God we clinched Franken.
Stunning fact number two: realizing that they will be hurting only themselves if they continued with their erstwhile delusional assertion that there is nothing wrong with the healthcare system as it is and that people are happy with what they have, Republicans are finally openly declaring that reform is needed and has been needed for quite a while. So after months of stalling, sabotaging, and simply saying “no,” the GOP finally produced their version of healthcare reform early in November — no more than two weeks ago.
Now, what is stunning is not that their reform completely missed the point of addressing the problem of covering the 40 million people who are uninsured (according to the COB, the plan would increase the ranks of the uninsured to 52 Million by 2019); ((“House Republicans offer alternative healthcare proposal.”)) nor is it that the proposal, in its totality would cost $61 Billion over 10 years (that’s less than what 8 months in Iraq costs us, at $2 billion/week); ((“The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More.”)) nor is it that the centerpiece of the proposal is allowing people to shop for insurance outside of their state, a proposition that insurance companies would love to see turned into law, giving them the flexibility to base their businesses at whatever state gives them the greatest flexibility to increase their revenues and suppress those pesky costs.
No, what is stunning is that the GOP has the face and the temerity to assume the mantle of reasoned and thoughtful reform when not once during the 12 years they controlled Congress from 1994 to 2006, and not once during the 8 years they controlled the White House from 2001 to 2009, did they propose serious healthcare reform. Instead, it was during their watch that the Doughnut Hole was created and a misguided and thankfully ill-fated attempt at tampering with Social Security was launched.
A Republican senator is going about hoping that the defeat of the healthcare bill will be President Obama’s Waterloo. ((“Harry Reid’s Remarks on the Senate floor.”)) It may turn out, ironically, that its passage will be the GOP’s Waterloo. Perhaps the debate that will follow and the passage of a bill that will finally tend to the people who have suffered at the insatiably greedy hands of the insurance industry and those who have carried their water all these years – perhaps at long last the People will wake up and realize that those who have been declaring their allegiance to the little, common man, have been simply lying and deceiving them all this time, and that their allegiance is, as it has always been, with Big Money and those who make their living managing their profit margins by squeezing the little people bloodless.