Orrin Hatch has shocked the political world by offering legislation in favor of government health care. After voting against the recent bill in Congress, the senator now believes that the government should be involved with the public’s health. Indeed, going even further, he says that the government should protect those who can least-afford health care. The unemployed. And those on welfare.
Sen. Hatch (R-Utah) has introduced an amendment that drug tests should be administered to people out of work before they can received unemployment insurance. This is not a punitive act against the needy, he insists, but rather is purely a matter of health. A matter of the government stepping in, so that these users can get the treatment they deserve.
“This amendment is a way to help people get off of drugs,” the senator states. And showing a concerned, progressive side few people knew existed, added emphatically, “It does get the help for them that they really need.”
But Orrin Hatch goes deeper in his embracing of government health care. Because after the government administers these tests, “then states could enroll them in either a state or federal drug treatment program.”
Federal drug tests. Federal drug treatment. Giving help to the needy. It’s almost as if Orrin Hatch has become a socialist. But, no, he’s just become a humanitarian.
Now, certainly, there can be many arguments on both side of the issue whether this is a good thing. Whether it will cost more money. Whether people should be tested for all manner of abuses or all illegal acts. Whether anyone getting any type of compensation from the federal government should have to pass a test of what is allowable by them. Whether someone who’s had an abortion or been arrested for drunk driving or spent any time in jail or even gotten a parking citation should be allowed to get unemployment insurance, or a federal grant, or a federal paycheck.
No, all that’s another matter entirely. That’s for another debate at another time. This is in praise of a wonderful man, doing a wonderful thing. Orrin Hatch, a seriously right-wing Republican, going against the party line – a party line he himself so fiercely fought to hold – and saying, yes, it is important for the government to be concerned with the health of our citizens. Yes, when the most vulnerable of our citizens, the unemployed, can’t do for themselves, then the government should step in and help them. Give them medical tests for drug use. And more.
And why? Because, as Orrin Hatch said, it gets them the help “they really need.”
Sometimes you have to look past your own demons and do what’s right. And if it means Orrin Hatch supporting socialized medicine, so be it.
Good for Sen. Hatch. He once was blind, but now he sees.
Admittedly, this program isn’t the solution to what is a far larger problem. After all, the nation is full of employed people who are on drugs, as well, and deserve the same help that Sen. Hatch says drug abusers need. But it’s a first step. And a noble one.
And it’s a step that others in Hatch’s home state of Utah support, including State Rep. Carl Wimmer (R-Herriman) who had introduced a similar bill, though he had to drop it for a conflict with federal law. But Mr. Wimmer believes just as strongly that the government should offer health care. “Clearly, people who have a drug addiction need help,” he told the Salt Lake Tribune.
Indeed, they do. All such people. Carl Wimmer has honed in on the issue and focused on its essence. “People who have a drug addiction need help.” For decades, this call has been the domain of those dismissed by the far right as “bleeding hearts.’ But now, Orrin Hatch and the Carl Wimmers of the world have stood tall to address this reality on both the federal and state level. To get government involved in bringing that medical help to people who need it.
Their words.
And surely we take them at their words for they must be good men. Honest men. Honorable men. Men who say they believe that people with a drug addiction need help, and federal drug programs are the way to provide it.
Orrin Hatch calls for government-mandated federal health care. Remarkable.
If only he’d voted that way when he had the chance.
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Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
In May the number of unemployed persons was 15 million. But that's just at one point in time. Since people drop in and out of the work force, over a year the total number of unemployed people would be significantly higher. So let's say that in a year 20 million people receive unemployment benefits at some time.
20 million people times $550 equals $11 billion. To give you some idea of the magnitude of that number, if a person receives $1,000 a month for 12 months, $11 billion would be enough to pay for 12 months of unemployment for 900,000 people.
While the public health benefit of such testing is doubtful, the companies providing drug tests would make out like bandits. Given that our supposed "representatives" are largely in the pockets of corporate interests, my guess is that benefiting the drug test companies is really what this proposal is all about.
Now the page on OpenCongress doesn't exist, but govtrack.us still has the bill listed.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-3502
Maybe for once he recognized his own hypocrisy? What a buffoon.
No. Let's criminalize people who have lost their jobs due to a crap economy made so bad by the government that wants to treat us like we are less because we must bear the brunt of their bad decisions. You go, Sen. Hatch.
Reality check--maybe we should LEGALIZE drugs like marijuana and give them to the unemployed to ease their pain. It makes as much sense to me as testing all of us who suck at the teat of government for our big, juicy unemployment checks, right?
Really, though SHAME ON YOU, ORRIN HATCH! I love it when politicians hold things like tax-pay contributed money hostage so we can conform to their MORAL BS.
For the record, Senator, I am NOT a drug user. But I do love my cheap wine. It takes the edge off thoughts and fears of being left penniless, foodless and homeless. I'd give you a urine sample, but you'd have to clean it off your leg! (Yeah, I said it and I'm a girl!)
R~
The idea behind using drug is to dull the sense and I think he and his compadre are both on something.
Beware of politicans who say they want to control the deficit, but at the same time suggerst programs which will boust it. Sometimes they have purchased shares in a venture that needs a steady stream of government money.
His suggestions sounds too much like what is going on in Afghanistan where US money spent on contracts to transport food, water, fuel and ammunition to American troops stationed at bases end up in the hands of the Taliban. So far they have collected $2.1 in tribute.
A man-date is as good as a woman-date, or a date with Data if he is free.
unbelievable.
However, when you are testing the general public, even a 5% false positive rate is intolerable. Only around 6% of the general population has used an illegal drug in the last month. That means about half of people who test positive for drugs will not have used drugs.
If the false positive rate is 10%, then 2/3s of all positives will be false and at 15%, 3/4s of all positive results will come from people who did not use drugs.
Once you start putting all these non-drug users in drug prevention programs, the drug treatment success rates will skyrocket. The non-users will walk out of the program as non-users and be counted as cured.
Orrin Hatch will congratulate himself.