Obamacare is here to stay

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Covered California is the Golden State’s version of the Affordable Care Act. And it Works.
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It strikes me as absurd that doctors – psychiatrists for example – might not want to take insurance as payment. Otherwise, we citizens still have a mandate to have insurance, lest we want to incur a penalty that many might choose not to pay – as opposed to purchasing insurance. Of course, to ask the wealthy to pay more does not bother me that much. However, what are they paying for when the benefit might not extend to them as individuals? For, as we can all acknowledge, why should we pay for things – through taxation – that we have no option of taking advantage of ourselves. We should eliminate disability coverage for mental illness – Social Security Disability Income – such that “big pharma” can get off their lazy asses and begin to work with a less lazy AMA and a less lazy FDA.

Consider, if you will, the working class parents whose children attend private school on scholarship. They, it seems, still have to pay the taxes to fund public schools, such that the comforts of public school become a mere option for the possible laziness or expulsion of their children from any kind of private school. I wish that Barack Obama could have recognized the class-divide as a matter of fact; and, not as a matter of rhetoric to set-up a future dominance for the Democratic Party in 2012 or 2016. The dogma of politicians horrifies me – in that, they protect their friends and turn American politics into a “machine” of succession.

For me, that is the true extent – not mention the true ramifications – of the ACA. Many people call it, “Obamacare” to reference the 1990’s and the Newt Gingrich label of “Hillarycare.” This Republican denunciation of affordable care in general means that Republicans should have fought for lower taxes. Instead, they reacted with a desire to win future elections by falling back on the laziness of “talking points.”

The ACA would “kill jobs” and lead to “death panels.” All of this frightful rhetoric either meant that the law had not been studied for the purposes of sincere debate, or, that the law had been rejected out of racism, such that white voters would seek to become Republicans and with that, of course, the Republican Party would win in 2012 and 2016 – in any election of any kind.

Mitt Romney, for all his business credentials and legal education from no less than Harvard University, understood that you must both repeal and replace the ACA. Meanwhile, his running mate Paul Ryan could do nothing more than scream and yell about a full repeal of the ACA. If, our main street as opposed to Wall Street, economy can be saved from the greed of Lehman Brothers, it must be saved by the Republican Party joining together to reform the ACA and not only and stubbornly to repeal that same legislation. Too bad, Republicans have divorced themselves from themselves by virtue of the Tea Party and do not seem to – yet – have recognized the divorce.

We cannot allow for “pre-existing conditions” to serve as ground for dismissal of coverage, in that we have, as per Sarah Palin claimed, true death panels in the corporate world, just as she claimed that the government would have such things as those same “death panels.”

As for the wealthiest paying more in taxes, it seems that the hike in personal income taxes covers that enough – without Obama having allowed for the price of pharmaceuticals to be negotiable? Put in simple terms, President Barack Obama is a coward for not pursuing the public option. In response to and for that specific failure, he groveled to his own party as per a place in history – and thereby lacked a concern for the present day.

Peter Bozic

In working for the Chicago Sun-Times, Peter learned the basics of journalism. The prose must be clear and the facts precise. He has worked in retail, customer service and sales as well, all of which made Peter want to return to writing — as he developed many opinions on issues ranging from LGBT equality to America’s economy. Peter’s journalism – as in what he believes journalism must and should be — will seek to clarify society through facts. Opinion pieces being something different altogether. From Pittsburgh, PA — and a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh — Peter knows how to speak his mind in clear and concise prose.