Another Reason to Hate Santorum
On March 18, 2012, I watched an interview with Rick Santorum on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” Santorum mentioned how he wanted to end Big Government with ObamaCare, yet he also wanted to make sure Big Government controls the sex lives of all Americans by making it illegal or unfeasible to have an abortion, use contraceptives, or view pornography.
First, I have issues with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) because no law should mandate that a citizen buy a commodity. That is the way Mitt Romney set the law in Massachusetts, which sucks because now everyone in MA is pitted against the law. One must choose to pay rent and have luxuries like food, clothing, transportation to work, heat, electricity, Internet (which people use for work, school, and commerce), and phones, OR they can have insurance. People could choose to not pay rent and buy insurance instead (roughly the same amount – except that in some cases rent is cheaper than insurance). Thus, MA residents must forgo necessities to expand the profit margin of Blue Cross or Tufts. How is that fair? How is that just? Are people who cannot afford both expected to live in boxes on the street to have health care?
Mandated health care is bullshit and it mocks the issue of affordability. Many Americans are struggling to make ends meet. The cost of living is steadily going up while the job market (and the average wage) stagnates. Yet, we must buy health insurance.
I say, fuck Blue Cross, fuck Tufts, fuck Harvard Pilgrim, and fuck all insurance companies. Why should the middle class be expected to become slaves to these companies that thrive on our misery? America can afford to go to a single-payer plan like VA Benefits or MediCare and then cover everyone free (or at the very least, an affordable and realistic rate). Remind me again why is that wrong. Ending our military involvement in the Middle East can easily pay for the cost of the program. In addition, we can also end subsidies to companies like Lockheed-Martin and Boeing.
Second, for those who think that universal health care is socialist and un-American I ask, since when should Congress mandate the purchase of a commodity? Since when should Congress enact laws that serve the profitability of wealthy companies and investors over the needs and the plight of American citizens? And where does it say that we should hand over our Constitutional right to privacy to people like Rick Santorum, who clearly wants to take away pornography, contraceptives, and abortion? Why should any American’s sex life be the business of anyone else? Why would you allow your rights to be taken away while fighting to make sure health care is not socialist, especially if you are a blue-collar worker or making just above minimum wage. It does not make sense why the working class insists on punishing themselves.
Thus, I get angry and start hating the American populace. Too many Americans are so foolish that they cannot see the forest for the trees. They would cut their noses off to spite their face, especially if they thought having a nose meant being a communist.
Therein lies my dilemma, I argue for an equitable society where we are all treated equitably but I also want to proverbially knock all these people’s heads together like a new-age Moe Howard.
I do not want to harm anyone, but you can see how frustrating it can be to talk to someone who cannot see beyond the cloud of Rightwing propagandist fart clouds.
Copyright © 2012 Sean P. Pratt, all rights reserved
Additional Information: This post was written during the 2012 election when Rick Santorum was running for president. I still champion the idea that health care should be a single-payer universal plan. Private insurance is not efficient, unless you consider efficiency to be defined by how many necessary services are denied or minimally covered. The people who oppose single-payer universal health care, and consider it socialism, are ignoring the fact that private, mandated insurance is in fact wealth redistribution. Oh, the irony.