Bring Us Your Tired, Your Poor, We'll Spit On Them

How terrifying is change? For people like me who carry the same bag with the same kind of sandwich in it five days a week, it can be a numbing prospect. What really helps me is to have a period of time to reflect and consider all the good things that might come from switching around my routines and habits. The real tough changes, however come from above, when it doesn't feel like a choice. If someone told me that I had to start eating bananas for lunch every day, I would resist. Even if that someone happened to be a doctor, or my president. What about the thirty-four million Americans who have been going without their metaphorical lunch for all these years?
Does that mean I understand what all this fuss is about health care reform? States filing lawsuits against a law that was passed by our Congress, vengeful tea parties, and a partisan divide in our political system like we haven't seen since the Civil War: to what end? At one point, those who opposed health care reform seemed to want a measured response, a slow transition. The chief objection, currently, is the cost. How can our country afford such a massive new program?
Well, here in the United States, we pay for it with taxes. That's the nature of social programs. Public education would be one of those. President Roosevelt, America's most beloved socialist, gave us a bunch of these programs, not the least of which was the origin of our interstate highway system. At the time, there were plenty of folks who wondered why the federal government would get involved in what seemed like a pretty local affair: roads. Why should somebody in New York have to pay for a highway in Texas? Keep your hands off my roads and my pocketbook!
It is but one example. I wouldn't say that the current health care bill is by any stretch a full and comprehensive fix for the problems that ail our country, literally and figuratively. I would say that maintaining the status quo is even more harmful, and we can only hope that once the dust settles, we can all look at the problem of health care costs and insurance rationally as a group. Even if it means switching from mayonnaise to mustard on that sandwich of ours.