It can easily be said that a National Health Care Option depends upon a healthy population. As a nation, the United States leads the world in gluttony. Like pollution and energy use, poor health is not a good category for leadership. So let's look at our own leaders. What is the overall level of Congressional fitness?
The National Health Care OPTION provides the opportunity for all Americans to access health insurance. In Congress, there is a staunch partisan resistance on behalf of the Republican party. I find this both strange and disheartening. Strange because most members of Congress enjoy their National Health Care Option. Strange because many members of Congress would not still be alive if it weren't for their government health insurance.
Meanwhile, I am disheartened because many Americans have quit thinking about Liberty. I understand that the inscription upon our Statue of Liberty reads "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Hungry". Truly, if the wealthy leaders of our nation have forgotten to care for these citizens; then the Statue of Liberty itself becomes an idol of hypocrisy and a hollow testament to the pitfalls of wealth and authority.
Liberty offers compassion and humility. Liberty elevates our spirit when we lend a hand to those who most need help. If the leadership of our nation cannot unite under Liberty, then we have not progressed at all from the feudal systems of the last millenium.
Have our riches emptied American souls of humility and compassion?
Has the TV impregnated American minds with selfishness?
Has Liberty been lost to the darkness?
Within the pages of the Bible, Jesus of Nazareth proclaims that "The Body Is A Temple". I do not see those words respected even by many of our leaders whose prosperity depends on Christianity. I see gluttony and poor health among many at the top. Perhaps they could tour the darker corners of their own districts and witness the hardships that many of their fellow countrymen endure. Unlike the feudal age, we have sufficient infrastructure to provide for our people. Private health care could certainly benefit from some competition. Many providers suffer from ineffeciency.
We have lived through thirty years of mostly unbridled self-interest. This has left in its wake, the problems we are working through today as a nation. Technology cannot produce compassion for the less-fortunate. Wealth cannot purchase empathy and goodwill. These things come from within. A National Health Care Option is a necessary act of Liberty. It is the right thing to do, to care for all the people in America.
Members of Congress and the opposing members of the Republican Party: If you say we can't afford a National Health Care option; then the greater truth is that America can't afford you.
Tom Schimmel is a writer living in the South.
He understands through personal experience what it is like both to have and not have health insurance.
Look soon for his new eBook: "The Clean Food Revolution"