Politics, policy and what happens next
The recent failure to repeal the American Healthcare Act could be the perfect example of why the Republican Party needs to stop being the party of no.
The week the vote was “expected” to make its way to the House for a vote, I remember sitting with my love wondering what the future of his own healthcare coverage would be. He happens to be a poster child for the Affordable Care Act and even the American dream: a small business owner able to pay his own bills, build a life for himself and when needed, hire people to work with him. He works hard, but like many Americans, things like healthcare and even saving retirement are challenges.
When his healthcare insurance began to increase, he began to wonder if he could afford it, placing him with millions of other Americans who walked that thin line, hoping to never get sick. The ACA allowed him to purchase insurance he could afford each month, so he could relax knowing he could continue to be a productive American. I mean, isn’t that what both Democrats and Republicans want to begin with? Or at least wanted before tea baggers and the Freedom Caucus existed?
There are lessons here, such as the fact that creating effective policy actually takes all sides, not one. The biggest lesson: folks who showed up to those town halls and those taking to the phones are making a difference. Here in Tucson, however, it seems like Congresswoman Martha McSally still doesn’t get it. Read Jim Nintzel’s take in this week’s Skinny on Page 6. I know folks who call her office regularly, only to get voicemail. They write her regularly too, only to get responses that have absolutely nothing to do with the concerns they shared with their representative. She backed Ryan on this failure all the way and has championed our new president all the way, too. Remember when we had a Blue Dog Democrat in that office. She didn’t always make every Democrat happy, nor every Republican. Will McSally be reelected taking the approach to make only one side happy?
That depends on you and not just what you do when you go to vote or what opposition candidate you put in place.
It depends on what you do now.
— Mari Herreras, mari@tucsonlocalmedia.com
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2017.
Christ, what an asshole.
Health insurance was affordable before the government got involved. You need to prioritize. Insurance before weed.
I thought Christians liked helping people.
Oh, silly me! I forgot that you are a phony Christian.
You have no facts ma’am.
The issues with health care are similar to the issues with other American institutions that have adopted the “business model” as the be-all-end-all of life in America.
Health care used to be about prevention, education and maintenance of personal health, and when required, the best treatment possible. Now, it is about getting the most money possible from the government, the insurance companies and the patients.
Prisons used to be about punishing criminal behavior, providing job skills, education and reducing the rate of people repeating crimes. Now, private prisons simply warehouse people, provide criminals opportunities to learn new skills from other prisoners and join gang-oriented criminal enterprises while charging governments the most money possible, to include payments for empty beds that make sure they are at full capacity for the greatest savings by agencies that fill them.
Education used to be about providing critical thinking skills and abilities that not only improved a person’s ability to contribute to our culture across a wide-range of disciplines, but improved the quality of life for graduates, their families and our society. Now, education is about using students as a revenue stream for the business and political currency of education, while creating burdensome debt that forces graduates to work well-below their abilities to stay one step ahead of the collection agencies.
This pattern goes on and on and on. Is it any wonder that the wealth gap continues to widen, even as so-called investors call for bigger and bigger profits to the point of crushing companies and institutions for a healthy bottom line?
Those who profess that deregulation and oversight are keeping business down and destroying Americans’ lives are lying to us. Contrary to all the touchy-feely promotions, businesses have no conscience. Businesses serve only the investors, frequently at the cost of those who have helped build the business. America needs to stop this madness and look to creating outcomes that enrich us beyond monetary wealth, because in the end the person with the most toys doesn’t win when there is no one left to play.
It would be so nice if the American people had the Affordable Care Act it passed in 2009. But no consequently, rather than implementing Obamacare as passed by Congress, the administration rewrote the law as they went along. Unions were exempted from fees, extralegal tax credits were awarded, “transition relief” was invented for preferred employers and insurance company losses were subsidized.
Just what you been smoking there Mari Herreras I believe the Republicans would love to have the 2009 ACA just where did that go?
And the 80-20 rule they implemented sealed it’s fate as the insurers were rewarded for “wasting” claims money. The law forced them to, or lower premiums. Surprise surprise, they chose the money route. How sophomoric a piece of legislation!
From a freshman President. You ignored his (Lack) of history in Illinois State Legislature. And his missing votes. Now look at the mess he left.
It is nice to be able to express the wants and desires of our peers help with the needs of our society. We have a very dynamic fabric in Tucson. I believe it has frayed tremendously over the past 16 years. I was however never the Tucson Estates Club House member. While I was there I did the remodeling my exposure to how other lived and what they paid morally to be there. So I lived comfortably without the BMW and attorney’s.
I liked the idea of being able to write my own hours able in the summer to go @ 4AM so I could be home after school. I can say that the workforce that works construction is the most volatile group in the County. It is this group and suppliers that lead the trend in new development and economic growth.
It is also this group that depended the most on affordable healthcare always has since the end of WW2. All of the civil workers are also covered by union agreements and the civil service rules and agreements. This cost are negotiated to compete with the everyday person.
If we are to attributed the cost of the civil service commission, union representation, and all related service done on tax payers time. Add those cost to employment burden as the should be the civil service worker as opposed to the private worker is paid 125% more. So now take the individual cost to replicate the insurance of a civil worker with out the group 50% deduction.
All of the protection that would have stopped this progressive economic difference was negotiated away for political gain and a few prospered. I ASK WHERE DID THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT GO ?
We need to get this done I do believe we have good representation in Congress and faith that McSally has the ability to read between the lines. While all the pencil tweekers are drafting a conspiracy theories calling. If anything say WE need to get this done. It has to be a individual payer no employer discounts. We can all share the burden of the extreme and the community needs if we can all share the burden fairly.
Too funny, call out the writer for having a filthy mouth for describing millions of Americans as being tea baggers, a homosexual act where one man puts another man’s scrotum in his mouth, and the ‘safe space’ liberals have the comment deleted.
They can’t even tolerate their very own words.
“Or at least wanted before tea baggers…”
See top comment.
Mary Magdalene – OUCH!
Not that Mary Magdalene WA, this is the one from Boston.
Sorry Mm, that must have been ac/dc impersonating you. He likes role playing as women
Would that make him a female impersonator?
If you’re referring to me (aZ/dc) and not that hard blues rock band, you’re as wrong as you usually are. Hence your username Wrong, Again.
Wrong, Again likes to live in false reality….the type of reality that lets him believe that he is not a fake Christian and that Chump is a ggrreeaatt president.
But all he does is sit in mama’s basement trolling and being a nuisance to all. Sitting there, typing nasty stuff about shit-covered toast and diapers. He is such a pathetic little man who spends his life in delusion.
That’s the actual reality.