Letter 2 America for March 27, 2017

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Dear America,

Above the fold on the front page of March 25th's New York Times appeared a picture taken in the Oval Office in the aftermath the day before of the failure of the Republican attempt to repeal and replace the eponymously named, Obamacare.  In the center, sitting at a desk obviously devoid of anything resembling work, was our illustrious president, wearing an expression that would have justified a caption reading, "Which way did he go, George?  Which way did he go?"  Flanking him, one on each side, were two of his acolytes, sycophants if you prefer, obsequiously grinning as if to connote loyalty in the face of embarrassment.  Tom Price, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services was to Trump's right, and the man too good for just two shoes, Vice-President Pence to Trump's to his Trump's left.  The scene properly reflected the haplessness of the White House in the whole "repeal and replace" debacle, but it really wasn't the story. 

Below the picture was a column on the subject of Trump's acquiescence in withdrawing the American Health Care Act, the Republican answer to the ACA, from congressional consideration embodying an account of the dialogue between Trump and Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.  In the second, third and fourth paragraphs, the writers detailed the problem that has paralyzed our legislature for at least eight years; it is the manifestation of Mitch McConnell's pledge to make President Obama a one term president.  Mr. Trump apparently wanted Ryan to call a vote on the bill instead of withdrawing it so as to make everyone in The House go on record as to his position.  The idea was to make them accountable for their actions with the electorates that sent them to Washington.  But Ryan, a journeyman politician now being consulted by an abject novice, pled with Trump to reconsider.  According to the text of the article, Ryan opined that a loss on the bill could do lasting damage to the Republican' who supported it.   Think about that.  The bill Ryan and Trump had just been touting as a preferable alternative to "Obamacare"  was so objectionable to voters, Ryan thought, that those voting for it could lose their seats, and on that basis, Trump relented and the pusillanimous pair agreed to spare their fellow Republicans the spectacle of accountability.  Thus, for the first time in my memory, it has been admitted that holding Congressmen accountable just isn't done in Washington, hence the arcane rules of The House that allow bills to come and go based on back-room vote counts rather than on our surrogates in Congress taking responsibility for what they do.  And likewise, though Mitch McConnell would never admit it, The Senate's filibuster and cloture rules protect senators from the consequences of what they like to call "transparency" in Washington...what the rest of us just call integrity.  That is the problem in Washington; congressmen can do despicable things and their misdeeds never have to see the light of day.  They can vote against the best interests, and even the will of their constituents, and no voter will ever know...all in the service of conservative dogma, which conservatives think of as the medicine that the people should take, whether they like it or not.

The history of Obamacare, an appellation attached to the ACA not by President Obama but by obstructionist Republicans (and I think they will regret it some day) is significant here.  When Bill Clinton took office, he assigned his wife to run a commission inquiring into health care in this country.  She and her colleagues were leaning toward a "single payer system, which smacked of the conservative anathema of socialized medicine, so the Republicans came up with an alternative: not Obamacare, but what became its precursor, "Romneycare."  Yes, the Republican presidential aspirant who thinks as the Supreme Court does that corporations are people too, oversaw the enactment of Massachusetts's version of the Affordable Care Act.  It was Republican orthodoxy then, and if the Republicans had any integrity--any courage, for that matter--when the Democrats were floating the ACA they would have just claimed the idea as their own and gone along.  Then we could have had a bipartisan solution to the health care privation of millions instead of a vapid, partisan calumniation of the plan in the name of opposing the good for the sake of party hegemony.   But with the "Blue Dog" Democrats at their side, they undermined the bill before it became law, and where are the Blue Dogs now.

The point is that the only way for our system to return to vibrancy and efficacy, if it ever had those qualities, is for every vote to be taken in the open: no filibuster, no prohibition of floor votes without the permission of the Speaker of the House.  If every congressman had to explain to his constituents why a bill was good for them, there would be no more specious partisan vilifications...no more prevarication like that which dragged the ACA down.  Remember, during the George W. administration, more than 60% of the American people favored universal healthcare, even a single payer system like that employed by most of the top thirty industrialized nations where infant mortality is lower and the average lifespan is longer than ours.  Ryan's version of politics is the reason that deceit has ruled.  That's not what the founding fathers signed us up for.

Your friend,

Mike

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This page contains a single entry by Michael Wolf published on March 27, 2017 2:47 PM.

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Michael Wolf published on March 27, 2017 2:47 PM.

Letter 2 America for March 22, 2017 was the previous entry in this blog.

Letter 2 America for April 4, 2017 is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

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