Sunday, March 21, 2010

Health Care Debate? A magnificent Mardi Gras Masquerade!

It is a good thing I have health care insurance, because if anything adversely affected my health recently, it was watching the Congressional debate over health care on Sun. night! The self serving and disingenuous political posturing on the part of the GOP ( Grand Obstructionist Party) made me want to throw up!
The smug, syrupy, sanctimonious procession of platitudes dished up by the Boehner Republicans made me more than ill ...it made me want to punch the television set!
I am sick! Sick of this debate. Sick of the phony posturing by members of the same party that contributed over 1.3trillion dollars to the federal deficit by voting for the Bush tax cuts version I and II, and voting for the Bush proposal to pay Senior drug benefits through expansion of Medicare, (which also contributed over 300 million dollars to the deficit), with nary a whimper of whining that we couldn't afford it . Let alone not a whimper of protest to the expenditure of billions and billions on an unnecessary war in Iraq.
I am reminded of Ambrose Bierce's definition of politics as "the strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principle...the study of who gets what , why, when, where and how"! The GOP of today has taken the masquerading part to new height! They have become a veritable Mardi Gras of mendacious manipulation.
This bill is no panacea, but it is better than simply doing nothing! As imperfect as parts of it may be ...it is still a major leap in the right direction. I would have preferred a public option. I could even have lived with republican efforts at some serious Tort reform (and I am a lawyer). But the fact that this bill will actually trim the deficit by over a trillion dollars over the next decade seems not to matter to the Republicans at all! It is as if they were deaf, dumb and blind over the last 8 years of Bush! Now they believe that the government should finally stop spending money it doesn't have ?
Well, welcome aboard the deficit reduction express...better late than never! But where were you for the last eight years?
It all comes down to this...the Republicans are essentially saying , "I've got mine...the hell with you!"! The Democrats are saying , "I've got mine...can I help you get yours"? That's is really what it comes down to!
It seems that the more things change the more they stay the same! It has ever been thus! I think the American people are smart enough to see through this smokescreen of opposition , and understand it for what it really is----- raw, unbridled, partisan pretense wrapped in the flag of hypocritical hogwash. Hopefully the American electorate will give it the treatment it deserves…..a giant flush down the toilet of political history!

Health Care Debate? A magnificent Mrdi-