When it comes to politics, I like to apply a little logic-I know, I know... its true, needing to see the world in a 2 +2 = 4 paradigm is my problem and I own it, and finding logic in politics these days is a big problem-especially when trying to apply logic to contemporary Republican thinking and actions.
Take health care for example: if one looks at the facts, one finds that only a very few Americans can afford to buy their own health insurance, and many Americans who have health insurance are insured under an employer's group policy, where the employer has found it necessary to up the employee contribution while the quality of the health care insurance goes down.
I heard on NPR yesterday that the majority of folks who are now able to own, or participate in group insurance will not be able to afford to own or contribute to health care insurance. I see two problems here. One problem is the health care industry; the upshot of no one being able to afford health insurance means no customers.
Logically, one would expect the industry to reform itself and begin offering quality health care insurance at an affordable rate; however, when companies get to large to fail.... Is it possible that the big-wigs sitting cozily in their multimillion dollar offices, enjoying multimillion dollar salaries, are betting that when insurance becomes totally unaffordable, the US Government will begin to pay for it, or worse, offer the health care companies a bailout? In light of the Republican stand in Congress, that is, their complete NO to an affordable government option plan-one must logically assume the Republicans are in favor of taxpayers paying the health care companies to continue offering insurance at a cost the taxpayer cannot afford.
It seems to me that Republicans (and a few warped Democrats) are delivering speeches where the content contradicts the facts, contradicts not just logic, but contradicts the truth. A NO vote for an affordable government health insurance plan is a vote against taxpayers. Think about it, with no government option, those, except the very wealthy (maybe one or two percent of Americans) who have health care insurance will lose it and join the ranks of the swelling number of Americans without health insurance. And, all the folks without health care insurance will be paying higher taxes to supplement or bailout the very companies that turned them away for lack of funds.
Who stands to gain in the current Republican no-plan? The folks in the multimillion dollar offices and multimillion dollar salaries. I say this because logically if the government offered a plan that was so good and so affordable that everyone jumped on the government plan and all the for profit health insurance companies went under... logically, the government would need many of the already trained folks from the now defunct health insurance industry-so the rise in unemployment would not be horrible, except for a few, overpaid executives who should be able to retire on the enormous salaries they enjoyed at the consumers' cost.
Gee, who likes to give money and tax breaks to business and to the already rich? Republicans have a long track record for supporting business and the already rich, but the connection requires logic, and logically, we are going to end up supporting the insurance industry, either through subsidy or bailout. A true dilemma which entails our American Congress voting for either unaffordable insurance for the majority of Americans (a vote for the already wealthy), or through an affordable government health insurance plan (a vote for the majority of American citizens), and sadly, history indicates a Republican vote for the already wealthy.
Maybe someone will introduce a bill that requires those in Congress to reinstate logic in our government. Perhaps something like a bill that would strip government health insurance from those in Congress who cast a NO vote for an affordable government health plan? Maybe if those in Congress who do not support an alternative government plan are divested of their own golden parachutes-health care and pensions (the same "pork" Republicans demanded that autoworkers give up in exchange for a car company bailout that ended in bankruptcy). Logically, one might expect Republicans (and a few warped Democrats), that is, those in our current Congress who care only for the welfare of their wealthy friends-would offer the insurance industry the same sort of deal, cut the wages, retirement, and health care benefits to all the agents, secretaries, all non-executive personnel, and "ask" the executives to take a salary cut, get the annual salaries down to half a million a year. But, logically, what can one expect from the same Congress people that would cut Medicare, Medicaid, and social security benefits while knowing that the people who suffer from such loss of benefits are the same people who have funded Congressional pay raises, retirement, and health care? I wonder how much the "people" are paying to support the Republicans (and a few warped Democrats) who consider the "people" unworthy of the same charity that they have come to expect from taxpayers? I will bet a nickel (all I have left after paying health care insurance and prescriptions that are not covered) the answer will not be logical.
