Obama Signs Health Care Legislation
Today was truly an historic day, as the President signed into law H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In what may well be the biggest day of the Obama Presidency, the President finally got his health care bill.
Let's not oversell it - as I've said before, this is not the biggest new social program since Medicare, that honor belongs to George W. Bush's drug benefit for seniors. It certainly isn't the biggest expansion of government in our lifetimes, that honor would surely belong to the start of the Iraq war. It isn't the biggest new bureaucracy in decades, that honor belongs to the Department of Homeland Security.
But, it is, as Vice President Joe Biden so uncomfortable said, "a f***ing big deal". It's a big deal because it will dramatically increase access to health care for 32 million Americans. It is a big deal because it will end the job paralysis caused by pre-existing condition exclusions and the fear that the loss of a job causes to those with medical problems. And it's a big deal because it fulfills the moral obligation of a wealthy nation to care for its people.
It doesn't do enough, or even much, on cost control. It's provisions to require insurance are weak. There is no public option. It doesn't abandon the flawed employer-provided model. It doesn't address the anti-U.S. pricing practices of the drug industry. There is a lot that I would like it to do that it does not. But it is a big deal. A f***ing big deal.
Gibbs Plays it Right
The only comment on our gaffe-prone Vice President's latest on mic gaffe? Robert Gibbs tweets "yes, Mr. Vice President, you are right" and the White House refers all questions to that tweet. Couldn't agree more.
Grow Up, GOP
There are lots of legitimate reasons to disagree with the Democratic approach on health care. If you are a true believer in the power of markets, a small government person, a true libertarian, a fiscal conservative, what have you, then this bill will not appeal to you. The GOP had ever right to vote against a bill that runs against their principles. You made your points, emphatically. You lost because you lost the November 2008 elections and badly. You lost because the people didn't give you the power to stop this bill, whether they presently like the bill or not.
Now is the time to grow up.
The health care bill is law. It is flawed. You've been quick to point out some of the more ugly flaws...the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, etc. Now, out of spite, you are going to stand in the way of repealing those same things of which you were so intently critical? What I'm watching right now on the Senate floor is a bad joke. It is pure sour grapes from the GOP. There is very little credible argument that the reconciliation bill makes the health care law, and it is now a law, worse. Yet the GOP obstructs. To what end? So that we can keep the Senate bill that they panned? John McCain has taken to the press saying the GOP won't cooperate with the Democrats on ANYTHING this year, regardless of if they agree ideologically. How childish.
I said several months ago, concerned about runaway deficits, that if I did not see a credible deficit reduction plan out of the White House prior to November that I would strongly consider voting Republican to check government spending. The GOP is trying their best to take that option off the table for me. The people deserve better.
Speak out against the bill you opposed, absolutely. Campaign against Democrats who voted for it, that's completely a fair debate. Campaign on repealing it? Sure. But blocking the improvements that YOU sought? Openly obstructing things you agree with? And don't start with...back in 200x, Democrats wouldn't play ball with George Bush on xxxx...the two wrongs make a right argument is rotten to the core.
Get over it.
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THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!
Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s syndrome child.
Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example.
Each smallest act of kindness – even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile – reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.
Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will.
All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined – those dead, those living, those generations yet to come – that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.
Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength – the very survival – of the human tapestry.
Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!
Excerpt from Dean Koontz’s book, “From the Corner of His Eye”.
It embodies the idea of how the smallest of acts can have such a profound effect on each of our lives.
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