CIVILITY IN POLITICS: IT’S NICE TO SEE!!

Yesterday former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination. Though I disagree with Ambassador Huntsman on many issues, I was impressed with him on a personal level. I was impressed with this man because he seems to have a personal code of integrity, which is missing from the political establishment in both parties.

In his announcement yesterday, he talked about the need for civility in our political system. The political discourse of this country on a national level has become poisonous and that poison is leaking down to both the state and local levels. It seems that because of this poison, people are afraid to embrace good ideas that might come from the “other side of the aisle”, or they are demonized, for even talking to the other side or branded as traitors.

So, good job to Jon Huntsman for trying to bring civility back to politics

SO WHO DESERVES HEALTH CARE IN THIS COUNTRY?

The political season was kicked off last night here in NH with the first Republican Presidential debate.  Even though I did not watch the debate, I heard clips from each of the candidates talking about how they would seek to repeal healthcare reform or as they refer to it: “OBAMA CARE.” Since the 2010 congressional mid-term elections, we have heard from opponents of healthcare reform that they would repeal it. Again last night we heard the mantra of REPEAL.  The problem I have is that we never hear what they would replace it with!  The opponents tell us to let the free market take care of it with enough competition that will drive down costs.  Really? Isn’t that the system we have now? Are your health costs going down? It seems as if every January I lose more of my take home pay to my contribution for my healthcare costs.

Healthcare reform offers some improvements for ordinary everyday people.  Insurance companies can no longer discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions; parents are now allowed to keep their adult children on their insurance until the age of 26. Preventive care is now part of the mix.  If healthcare reform is repealed, what happens to all of these improvements? Do they just go away because things go back to the way they are now?

I don’t pretend to know everything and anything about the legislation that was passed; my thoughts are: let’s work in a bipartisan way to fix the parts and pieces that need fixing.  Health care is a right, not a privilege.

SHOULDN’T WE ALL SHARE THE BURDEN?

Balancing the budget has to be a priority both on a state level and a federal level. But the question is, how do we do that? Some advocates say that we need to cut the social safety net programs and we keep hearing that we can no longer afford these programs.  When we talk about the safety net program, everyone always assumes that we are just talking about Medicare and Social Security.  The Social Safety net programs are the commodity food programs that assist the elderly, Women, Infants and Children, which assist low income families with the nutritional needs for families with infants and young children. An important program here in the northeast is the fuel assistance program, which assists low-income families with fuel oil/propane assistance.  Job programs in this economy are so important. They give workers the opportunity to restart their careers by being trained for jobs that are relevant in today’s economy. For instance, an auto worker in Detroit who had been laid off from General Motors numerous times had the opportunity go to nurses training. Since this was an “equal dollar” job, it was a win/win situation for everyone; we added a valuable member to the nursing profession which currently has a shortage of nurses, and we subtracted from the auto workers profession.

It seems to me that when the cuts are focused on just these programs it doesn’t seem that the burden of balancing the budget is being equally distributed. The top 2% of American earners seem to be exempted from sharing the burden. I ask you, is this fair? The American people don’t mind sacrificing but they want to know that everyone is sharing in that sacrifice. One of my concerns is what happens to the individuals when these programs no longer exist? Is our society saying that because these individuals were born, ill, or poor that they don’t matter as much as people who were born healthy and wealthy? The America I grew up in always took care of its own, no matter from what station of life you came!