I had an appointment this week with a man who wanted to refinance his house.  He works for a large international company that pays for most of his health insurance.  As we sat down to go over his paperwork, unsolicited, he announced to me "That Barak Obama is the worst president we have ever had."

 That got my attention, for sure, so I asked, "How so?"

  "This health care thing is crap, what does he think he's doing?"

 "Well, he's making healthcare affordable for people like me who have to buy their own," I responded.

  "I have to pay for my own," he announced.

  "You do?  I would have figured that your company would pay for a large chunk of yours?"

 "I have to pay for supplimental, the part that my employer won't cover."

 "Oh," I said. "Well there's eight thousand dollars that I have no coverage for with mine at all."  (I was beginning to feel like a little kid who was comparing my dad to your dad to figure out who had the baddest and biggest dad.)

  "But you know what really ticks me off?" he continued as if I hadn't even spoken.

 "No, what?"

  "I have to pay ten dollars a month for medicare."

  "FUCK YOU!" I yelled silently.

(You with the six figure income have to pay $10 bucks a month for medicare and you are whining about it?  Give me a break. )

  This conversation summarized for me the miscommunication, aided and abetted by the Republican party that we as a nation are undergoing with regard to healthcare. One segement of  people who are opposed to healthcare reform seem to be folks who have healthcare that is paid by the corporations they work for and they are anticipating negative change to their current situations.  So I am going to be Mr. Obvious and point out that what they appear to have missed is that their healthcare is going to change regardless of whether or not we have healthcare reform.  What I wanted to say to my client was , "Dude, healthcare as it stands is unsustainable.  Heading toward the future, your company is going to pay less and less of your premiums.  The insurance companies have priced everyone out of the market.

 Interestingly enough there is another segment of the population that is opposed to healthcare reform who are people who have none.

  My mortgage company leases office space inside a real estate company. Many people don't realize that real estate agents are self employed.  And of course, if you are self employed you have to find and purchase your own health insurance.  Our state does not allow insurance pools for small business and/or self employed people to access insurance at reasonable cost so many of the agents in our office are uninsured. And, independent contractors are independent contractors for one big rationale....they are independent.  For some bizarre reason, many of these self employed people are opposed to healthcare reform and are also uninsured.

  These folks are exceedingly vocal in opposition to the "govenment takeover" of health insurance.  Two of the more vociferous voices of opposition in my immediate enviroment have recently been hospitalized for major health concerns.  I would anticipate that both of those folks will be filing medical bankruptcy in the very near future.

 So I want to get this straight....You, who are opposed to affordable healthcare because you don't want your tax dollars spent insuring the children of others who can't afford the current system or people who are dying of cancer whose insurance companys have cut them off, are okay with the idea that I can pay for your costs of hospitalization due to your lack of health insurance in larger premiums, as well as higher interest rates and costs of purchase, because you defaulted on your financial obligations through bankruptcy? 

  I don't get it, I really don't.  Why all the anger about this?  When did we become such a selfish nation? When did we decide that we don't want to pay for the things that are for the common good?  No one wants to be forced into bankruptcy or be told that they can't have the medical care they need because they can't afford insurance or have been kicked off the rolls of the insured.  No one wants to do without education, police protection, or decent roads but fewer and fewer appear to feel a responsibility to pay for it. 

 For the record, the President cut taxes to the middle class last year.  It comes in the form of less withholding. In my case it works out to be about thirteen dollars a week more in my paycheck.  The reasoning was that if we all get a little more back in our checks instead of a lump sum we will spend it and it will help the economy.  That is exactly the way it works for me. I don't stash that thirteen bucks when I get it. I spend it.  But I could just as easily give it back to the treasury to spend on my neighbor's health care or my local schools which just cut 125 teachers. That's okay with  me.

 We are rapidly turning into a nation of ignoramouses; self centered, self involved and short sighted.  For the past thirty years we have been all to eager to accept what we want to hear as the truth. We quit asking questions.  Maybe we got a little too fat, a little too complacent. We are all too willing to vote people into office who are there for their own gain and advancement rather than those who are working to benefit us all...WE THE PEOPLE.

 Where are the truth tellers? Barak Obama has stepped up and put what is best for the country on the line.  Some think he is cramming it down our throats and there are many who are very pissed off about it.  To them I say, "TOO BAD." Your mom made you take medicine that didn't taste good when she knew it would make you healthy.  She wasn't interested in how you felt about it.

 Our job as concerned citizens is to elect people who will do the right thing not the popular thing. People who don't care if they are only in office one term. Primary season is approaching-get out and vote. Public opinion can make lousy national policy. (Eight years of W should make my point.) When we rail against the government what we are really saying is that we have the government we deserve because like it or don't, we are the government.  People who are employed by the government, from senators on down to the lowliest clerk at the IRS are people just like you and me. (By the way, if the ten thousand jobs rumored to be created in the IRS to moniter mandatory insurance compliance is true-yay, that's ten thousand new jobs.)  If you don't like it, get involved. None of this hate speech, fear mongering or hand wringing is productive.

 And...as for the guy in my office who was bitching about healthcare. I know you don't pay nearly what I do in premiums, so for you fella, I got a deal....I just doubled your mortgage fees.