Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Pulling the plug on healthcare for lower income people

Representative Mo Brooks, R-Alabama thinks universal health care is too expensive but tax cuts for the rich are necessary.

Adding my own comments. Since 49% of births are now paid for from Medicaid, maybe a lot of those babies should be aborted? Life may not be worth living if one has a chronic and costly disease or needs to be in a nursing home. Can we even afford healthcare for all our people? I hope we can do better than this, but these deep questions, about the value of human life in various stages, do need to be part of the conversation.

As for tax cuts for the rich, it seems like some people use an analogy of a fire to describe the economy. They think that taxing wealthy people smothers the fire. Others, such as economists like Paul Krugman, say that the wealthy are hoarding money. Their analogy would come closer to one of circulation. Be generous, spend money. Especially if the money isn't being spent otherwise, tax, spend and keep the money circulating.

Mo Brooks also talks about bad health choices which people make that society can't keep supporting. Smoking, bad diets, lack of exercise. I can understand, a bit, being a bicyclist myself. At the same time, where's the compassion? Some people have more health, some have more money, some people have neither. A society with little compassion is a crude culture. Do Congressman Mo Brooks and his colleagues ride bicycles? What about the changes we need to make in society to promote healthier living? Time for exercise versus having to be a workaholic. What about support for parks and trails, better diets, less sugary soft drinks? What about doing better than just pulling the rug out from under people? What about doing better than just denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions?

Folks like Mo Brooks do have support from some segments of the American people. I know that one can get what is called "compassion fatigue." Feeling overwhelmed. People in Italy are dealing with thousands and thousands of immigrants landing on their shores, from overpopulated countries in Africa and so forth, but if the Italians and other Europeans can survive and even thrive, why can't we? Our own immigration circumstance is not currently as overwhelming as that? Of course we can't hold up the whole world, but I hope we can do better at taking care of the people than what Republicans tend to propose.

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