The current healthcare legislation is struggling, but that doesn’t mean it is going to go away.  There is an attitude in this country today that health insurance that covers routine doctor’s visits for everything is a right.  I agree that healthcare is a right (nowhere in the United States is that right in question), but health insurance that makes healthcare ‘free’ to everyone is not a right.  I don’t have a problem with helping people afford the care they need, I just don’t want to see healthcare become an out-of-control welfare system. 

There was a time in this country when people were denied medical care because of their race.  That was wrong, but that time is over.  I have a friend who grew up during that time in the rural south and as a senior citizen she is struggling with many physical issues because she was denied routine healthcare as a child.  I don’t want to see things like that happen.  Actually, under Obama’s healthcare plan I don’t think she would be allowed to access the quality care she is getting now–they would declare her too old and too expensive to treat.

I am not optimistic about how this debate will turn out.  I hope when the Congress goes on recess in early August, they listen to the people they are supposed to represent.  The reason the President wants a vote before August recess is that if Congress has already voted, the complaints they hear will not matter (until the ballot box next year).  I’m not sure how reliable the  blue-dog Democrats are–they helped elect Nancy Pelosi as speaker.  If this miserable piece of legislation gets through, it will be very hard to undo and it will be very bad for the country economically.  We need to watch how people vote and who proposes what to add to the legislation.  Then we need to remember these things next November.