Health Care Debate

I am seriously fed up with news reports about the health care debate!!!!!!! So why am I writing about it? Just blowing off a little bit of steam this morning. I think that in the end analysis most commentators nailed the acrimony between the parties on the head. At root there isn't a great deal of agreement between the parties on the government's responsibility to provide fair access to health insurance for its citizens. I have no problem being labeled a socialist - or in the Tea Party's slurs a Communist like Fidel Castro - in this case. I absolutely believe that the government has responsibilities to its citizens that includes extending assistance for basic health care coverage.

We have Republican friends, which still confuses me (not that we are friends but how our views don't seem so very different and yet we affiliate differently) but the reason why I could never affiliate myself with the image that I carry of the Republicans is because the party line seems to be "You Deserve What You Get". In practice that works out that if you are born into money and life advantages, it is because you deserve it. Conversely, if you are born into poverty and every kind of educational disadvantage, you deserve that too. I can't live with that notion.

Now I"m just being pissy but I wonder how many Teach for America, AmeriCorps, City Teach for a Year or Peace Corp Participants would affiliate with the Republican Party? How many Republicans would be willing to stand up and say that they aren't willing to sacrifice any personal gain or advantage to extend advantages to others? When it comes down to self or others, I think that Republicans are pretty clearly all about protecting and preserving what they've got and to make sure that the government doesn't impinge upon their right to be down right selfish.