Health Care

Killing and Dying…

by MyBaconPress

Generally speaking, I hold that in order for a transaction to be honestly Capitalist, both parties must have a legitimate ability to say no.  CLEARLY, this is not the case with health care.  So, I support universal health care.  Specifically, Bernie’s proposal for Medicare for all.  Why re-invent the wheel, right?

Okay, so this right-wing activist “judge,” Reed O’Connor, rules in his “court” that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.  (As it happens, he’s a shill for right-wing causes and heavily involved with the Federalist Society…)  In my opinion, that’s bad.  But I was never a fan of the ACA.  I know it was originally proffered by the far-right Heritage Foundation as an alternative to universal health care back when Bill asked Hillary to pretend to look into it in the 1990’s.  (Not surprisingly, she failed…)

The ACA became known, popularly, as ‘Obamacare.’  Most people benefit from it.  Conservatives hate Obamacare, though they LOVE the Affordable Care Act.  (Why, yes.  You CAN use that as a gauge regarding their level of understanding of…things…)  This activist judge’s ruling will, of course, cause pain to huge swaths of our country.  As with all things conservative, the vast majority of people will suffer.  Many will die.

But I suspect that by striking down the ACA, this Texican “judge” has inadvertently opened the door to Medicare for all.  Sooner or later, the United States is going to have to join the rest of civilized humanity and provide universal health care as a right, not another obligation to pay…

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The National Shame has named Mick Mulvaney to be his next Chief of Staff.  Apparently, Mulvaney is expected to continue in his current role as Director of the Office of Management and Budget as well.

That’s a good insight into how hard these people are working, isn’t it?  Mulvaney can do TWO jobs, each of which normally consume inordinate amounts of time?  My guess is Mulvaney will be COSINO (Chief of Staff In Name Only).  Look for Kushner to do the job until his court dates start piling up and, after his conviction, perhaps Ivanka will take over – you know, until HER conviction…

“Drain the swamp,” indeed.  It sure seems to me that Trump is trying his best to out-do Reagan when it comes to number of administration members who end up in prison.  True, he’s on a pretty solid run at this point but Reagan had eight years to send his 138 people to prison.  I don’t think Trump is going to have the time needed to make it a true competition…

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Donald J. Trump is now killing children at the border.  Well, he’s not doing it personally.  He’s a coward.  He would NEVER do it personally.  But his racist policies are getting the job done for him.

US and international law allows for people to seek asylum.  The Orange Foolius declaring them “illegals” and refusing their requests is, itself, a crime.  Now someone – a child named Jakelin Caal – has died as a direct result.  Can we add involuntary manslaughter to his list of crimes?

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I think the NFL is going to end up paying Colin Kaepernick a HUGE amount of money when they finally have to settle his lawsuit and it’s just arrogant stupidity that’s causing it.  ALL THEY HAD TO DO was sign him to some team – any team.  But when Alex Smith and then his backup went down in Washington, the professional football team there signed two career “also-ran” Quarterbacks.  There can be no question the NFL is colluding against Kaepernick in retaliation for Kaep’s stance on police brutality…

I’ll tell you this: the NFL employs a LOT of people of color.  One would think they would at least put on a show of support for a protest opposing the wanton murders of people of color…

A Right to Health Care?

by MyBaconPress

Recently, I’ve seen an increase in the assertion that Americans don’t enjoy a right to health care.  I’ll stipulate that I don’t see anywhere in the Bill of Rights any kind of statement that says anything like, “All Americans have a right to health care”, ok?  Agreed.  But don’t jump to the end.

Starting at the beginning of the Constitution, one discovers the founders expressed their opinion about why this new government should exist in the first place.  They defined, in general terms, their vision of the most basic responsibilities of government.  They wrote:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence (sic), promote the general Welfare (emphasis added), and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Only 26 words into the document it says: “…promote the general Welfare…”

I started thinking about the word “Welfare” as it might have been understood in the late 18th century – as opposed to today’s social safety net.  Checking my (admittedly not 18th century) dictionaries, I found that my American Heritage Dictionary defines welfare as “Health, happiness, and general well-being”.

I turned next to the Internet and the Oxford English Dictionary.  OED is one of the most respected dictionaries of the English language.  Ok, they charge for access so I looked at the Compact Oxford English Dictionary online.  They define “welfare” as “the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group”.

Turns out, one can’t define welfare – as it relates to the human condition – without including health.  Well, in fairness, Webster’s tries.  They leave out ‘health’ and put in ‘well-being’ but when you look up ‘well-being’ in the same dictionary, it specifically includes “the state of being…healthy…”

The Founders were a clever group of guys with a solid command of the English language.  I think they knew what the word ‘welfare’ meant when they wrote “promote the general Welfare”.  They could have written, “promote the general health, happiness and general well-being” but they didn’t need to.  There’s a word for that: welfare.

If one plans to take the position that Americans don’t have a “right” to health care since such a right is not clearly delineated in the Bill of Rights, then one must simultaneously argue that one does not enjoy a right to vote.  Voting, after all, is not spelled out in the Bill of Rights, either.

But whether or not one defines health care as a “right”, certainly the Founders described it as a fundamental function of government and I’ll tell you this: without question, I have the right to expect my government to perform its most basic functions…

(Note: this is a re-post from 2010.  I like to do that from time to time, just to show how the situations change but never change.  This essay had been correct for years before I wrote it and it’s still correct seven years AFTER I wrote it.  Damn.  The “edit” is because I forgot to add this note so I was just basically plagiarizing myself…)