THE GOP´s EFFORTS AGAINST HEALTH CARE REFORM IS MORE DESPARATE THAN IT APPEARS

A successful Congressional vote on the health care reform plan could theoretically bring an end to the Republican Party.

…Passing the Democrat´s health care reform could be a rebirth of a new, FDR type "NEW DEAL"

If you think that the Republican´s current push against the health care reform bill is only their fight for keeping all Americans from getting access to health care, you are seriously delusional.

Yes, the conservatives and the Republicans will say the plan goes too far and costs too much, even though it would actually lower our current health care costs. But the passage of the Democrat´s health care reform has many implications for the GOP beyond medical coverage for all.

You will notice for instance how the right-wing "talking heads" keep saying that a "public option" or a "single-payer health care plan" would be a move for America into pure "Socialized Medicine".

First, the statement is totally incorrect. "Socialized Medicine" is when the hospitals and the doctors are all owned and managed by the government and all the employees work for the government. Yes, we do have socialistic medicine in America today and it is called the Veteran´s Administration (VA). The VA´s hospitals and the doctors are all part of the US government.

However, the "public option" within the current plan is not "Socialized Medicine". The "public option" would still allow the participants to see their private doctors at private hospitals, just like Medicare, but the payment of the premiums and the payment of the medical bills would be to and from a government agency. And that´s all it is! If the plan is approved, it could be called "Socialized Insurance", but not "Socialized Medicine".

The problem that the GOP has is that if the Democrat´s health care reform plan is finally passed, and it is successful, this would be a major feather in the Democrat´s cap and it would be another recognition and support of FDR´s "New Deal" type programs. Once again, as it was with the Social Security and Unemployment Insurance programs, and Lyndon Johnson´s Medicare, approval of the health care plan would then be an admission that we Americans really are "our brother´s keepers".

These are the moral principles that are directly the opposite of the foundational goals of the conservatives and the Republican party. The GOP believes that life sometimes is not always fair and that health care is only a "privilege", not a "right". They seem to feel that if an American is unfortunate enough to not be able to afford health care, the US government has no business to be involved in the health care business. This is why they have always voted against programs such as Social Security and Medicare / Medicaid.

Conservatives have always felt that if a person happens to have "bad genes" and develops cancer, diabetes or some other catastrophic disease, that´s just "bad luck" for them and it´s not the government´s responsibility to help "make them well". Of course it would be political suicide for a conservative to say something like that in public, but that is their attitude deep down and also within their overall philosophy.

Instead of making these kinds of outlandish and selfish statements out-loud, they spout the rhetoric that with a "public option" there will be health-care rationing, long-lines, no choice of doctors, a reduced quality of health care, and of course, higher costs to the taxpayer.

The fact that France, Canada and Germany have these types of programs and have proven all of these claims to be totally false, they continue in trying to sell that ridiculous story.

Here are a couple of 2004 examples of why they are wrong:

Annual Health care spending costs per citizen:

United states: $6102

Canada: $3165

France: $3150

Germany: $3043

Life Expectancy:

United States: 77.5 years

Canada: 80.2 years

France: 79.6 years

Germany: 78.9 years

Yep, we pay more and don´t cover everyone as these countries do, and all their citizens live longer. And year after year, the surveys of the citizens in these countries show that they love their health care and think that the American system is stupid.

But as I said, the real issue is not the health care plan itself. The real issue is that the basic goals of the Republican Party are to dismantle the American Middle Class and to increase the wealth and power of the very rich. Just as it was in "Merry ole´ England", the American conservatives only believe in the two-party system. The wealthy and the poor.

Obviously, they won´t outwardly admit that this is their actual goal, but why else would they always have voted against every American social program? Why was it that in eight years of controlling the White House, the Senate and the House, and with American´s health care costs going through the roof, they did absolutely nothing for health care and the average American citizen…? Even their Medicare Plan D prescription drug bill was not a paid-for program (it was instead left for our grandchildren to pay). And the bill doesn´t even allow the government to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical companies (as all the other countries do).

The "Plan D" is so bad that it is also why the seniors on Medicare now have the infamous "lack-of-coverage ´Donut-Hole´ ". This problem in the plan doesn´t cover the costs of many senior´s drugs. And the lack of having any negotiations is why the US currently has the most expensive prescription drugs in the world. Not exactly a program for supporting the average American during the most vulnerable period of their lives.

Here is a short list of some current and past bills or programs that would not have passed if the Republicans had had their way. In fact, the majority of Republican politicians have always voted against bills for supporting these areas, going back as far as the early 1900´s:

Current and past programs that Republicans have always voted against:

• Universal Health Care (In 1906)

Social Security

FDIC

Securities and Exchange Commission

Unemployment Insurance

Allowing the formation of Unions

Regulating of the Banks

Regulating of Monopolies

Regulations against War Profiteering

Medicare

Medicaid

Clean Energy

2009 Stimulus Package

These programs, and the new Democratic party´s health care reform package are totally against the basic philosophical foundation of the Republican Party. That being, they believe that by passing a comprehensive health care bill, it would signal the rebirth of a potential centralized "welfare-state policy" as was accomplished during FDR´s New Deal and Johnson´s Great Society.

And please remember that the definition of a "welfare state" does not mean everyone is on welfare. It just means that the US government agrees that it has a level of responsibility for supporting Americans, as the US Constitution says, "to promote the general welfare", such as in this case, the area of health care for all US citizens.

Should the health care bill pass, and if the program is successful, it could then signal the beginning-of-the-end of the Republican Party as we have known it for the past 3-4 decades.

In other words, the GOP is fighting the Democrat´s health care reform bill as a threat against the actual existence of their political party. A party that was originally started with the election of Abraham Lincoln.

For these reasons, a defeat of the health care plan would be devastating for the Democrats, and it would allow the republicans to rebound to some level of prominence. But if the health care bill passes and it works reasonably well, the Republicans could virtually disappear just as they did after the Republican President Herbert Hoover failed and after the successful Democratic terms of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

One can now only hope for a repeat of that situation.

Copyright G.Ater 2009

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