President Obama, Vice President Biden, and senior staff applaud in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, as the House passes the health care reform bill, March 21, 2010
----Photo by Pete Souza
In March 2010, the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), into law.
Every Democratic President, since Harry Truman, has wanted to do healthcare.
But, it took Barack Obama to get the ACA through and into law.
Remember, Truman failed at it because of racism and Jim Crow - because the Southerners feared de-segregated hospitals. If there was Universal Healthcare, that healthcare was a RIGHT, then they couldn't keep up American Apartheid.
Today is the first day where millions of Americans can sign up for medical health insurance at the Medical Healthcare Exchanges.
I can't begin to tell you the simmering rage that has been building within me, as I have watched the GOP posture and threaten not only a government shutdown, but the possibility of default on the full faith and credit of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA because of Obamacare.
And, from here on out, I will call it OBAMACARE.
Because, I will take what the GOP began as a slur and turn it around on them.
I want those dumb, ignorant hicks from RedStateLand, who are quoted in their local papers about how great their new state exchange is, to know, contrary to their IGNORANCE, that state exchange and all of it's benefits are OBAMACARE.
That's right.
When you are sitting at your doctor's appointment for the first time in years because you finally have insurance - SAY THANK YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA.
When your prescriptions don't cost you an arm and a leg because you finally have insurance - SAY THANK YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA.
When your wife, mother, sister, grandmother, aunt, daughter, goes for their mammogram and they have no co-pay - SAY THANK YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA.
When your wife, sister, granddaughter, niece, doesn't have to worry about contraception and how she's going to pay for it - SAY THANK YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA.
When your grandmother and grandfather now go for their wellness checkups with Medicare and have no co-pay -SAY THANK YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA.
When the family members that have some sort of pre-existing condition can finally get health insurance - SAY THANK YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA.
The President said last week that he doesn't care what they call it, as long as people get the benefits.
He might not, but I do. I and millions like me, who understand the monumental accomplishment of what he did, and our utter resentment of the assholes that have spent over a HALF BILLION DOLLARS, first to try and defeat the bill, and then to spread LIES about it.
That's why I have no tolerance for incompetent supposed 'journalists' like college dropout Chuck Todd at MSNBC who actually had the never to say last week that it wasn't his job to point out the GOP's LIES about Obamacare.
It wasn't his job?
If it's not YOUR JOB to tell the truth about obvious LIES told about a program that will benefit MILLIONS OF AMERICANS - then that the hell is your job?
The bottom line is that the GOP legislators - ALL OF WHOM ENJOY TAXPAYER FUNDED TOP OF THE LINE HEALTHCARE
Are working overtime - they have voted 43 times to repeal Obamacare....
They are willing to shut down the government, so that 30 MILLION AMERICANS will be denied healthcare.
THAT is their goal.
Mull on that.
How transformational is what President Barack Obama achieved?
Think about this.....healthcare is the final part of the social safety net that every other industrialized country enjoys..and, it took a Black man, Barack Obama, to ensure that, unlike with Social Security and Medicare, THIS part of the social safety net will BEGIN not excluding huge chunks of the American populace. Remember, when Social Security began, FDR excluded professions that ' coincidentally' had large numbers of Blacks employed in them (this was snark - wasn't no coincidence). Same thing for Medicare....65 was chosen as the age, because GUESS WHO had a shorter life expectancy when it was designed....yeah, you know the answer.
But, not OBAMACARE. From the beginning, it will help the broadest swath of Americans possible.
Where to begin with the Obamacare Exchanges?
Here's a video.
You can begin at HEALTHCARE.GOV
Before I begin to drop links, I want to bring your attention to an absolutely fabulous post by zizi2 over at The Obama Diary from last week. The entire post is wonderful, but here's the core of why the GOP is fighting this. Here is the reason they despise President Barack Obama so much:
GOP hates Obamacare Cuz Pres Obama snatched Ayn Rand’s wig
With the exception of religious cultists who abdicate control over their own being, we as INDIVIDUALS instinctively strive for SELF-PRESERVATION especially when our life is threatened. It’s an existential article of faith. And nothing crystalizes this fact more readily than when we NEED healthcare to prevent or cure illness.
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In the perverse Ayn Randian philosophy that the likes of the Koch brothers espouse, there’s talk of pursuing one’s own interests only. But in actuality what they have told their rubes is that they must sacrifice their economic interests in service of ideology. In other words 1%ers preach cultural adherence and ideological purity to their followers while they themselves siphon every public asset and good to themselves. It’s a faith-based heist of the commonweal.
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President Obama co-opted Ayn Rand’s idea of rational self-interest, turned it on its head, and the Republican Kochsters HATE him for it. The ACA challenges the ability of the Bircher puppetmasters and their corporate ilk to control their rubes over the single most important and intimate aspect of their lives; healthcare. But worse for them it has electoral implications, at least in the near term. Kochsters know it, we know it, and ordinary Americans will soon know it too. As VP Biden said, it’s a BFD, positively for ordinary Americans, and negatively for the Kochsters.
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Healthcare is ground zero. It’s a singular necessity of life in which no one can live vicariously through another person’s. In an airplane emergency if your oxygen mask IS working you hold on to yours for dear life regardless of whether the passenger in seat 53G’s mask is working or not. That’s Rational Self-Interest. You can’t bullshit people about what they are getting or not getting. Healthcare is personal. Too intimate. No one ever forgets what that experience is like or costs. The impact is visceral. The numbers don’t lie. People know that they paid $1500 out of pocket last year for an MRI and now it is covered under ACA.
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President Obama snatched Ayn Rand’s wig in that he is redefining those functions that Libertarians allow government to perform, most notably DEFENCE. He is rudely substituting Healthcare for that without an iota of apology. In PBO’s redefinition a strong nation state is one filled with HEALTHY people maximizing their potential in pursuit of their rational interests, not fancy munitions. Secondly whereas Rand’s binary thinking led her to see “community” as anathema to individual interests, PBO sees it instead as both lifeblood and dynamic marketplace that enables said individual to achieve anything at all. Healthcare is the test ground for his cooptation of Randian self-interest.
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The ACA also breaks the stranglehold of employers on workers, who until now have hung onto miserable jobs for dear life cuz of healthcare, and have traded real wages for “benefit packages” whose worth start depreciating the very moment you start clocking into work. Paltry salaries will be revealed for what they truly are.
The boon will be for those raring to strike out on their own but have dared not take the risk because of healthcare security their employer provides, and the fear of illness bankrupting them should they leave.
The entire piece was wonderful, but this last part that I bolded, is the heart of why they hate this President.
How many people know someone who is at a job THEY HATE because of healthcare?
How many people know someone that has the years to retire, but are too young for Medicare, so they don't, because of healthcare expenses?
How many people know someone who took a job they really didn't want because of healthcare benefits?
How many people know someone young who wants to take a certain job, that maybe doesn't pay a lot, because of benefits?
How many people know someone who wants to be an entrepreneur, but they have a family, and didn't because they couldn't think of leaving their family vulnerable without health insurance?
Don't we all know SOMEONE in one of these categories above?
OBAMACARE has the potential to change ALLL of that.
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