We should be celebrating today. We are finally reassured we will have much needed health care reform. Health care opponents have been kept at bay. Some 30 million uninsured Americans are reassured they will have the security of knowing they will finally have health insurance. Many others will be reassured health care insurance will not be ripped from their lives by uncontrollable forces.
It's been a scandal for far too long that the wealthiest nation in the world has not provided better healthcare, albeit now a patchwork program largely written by our nation's insurance companies.
In this political struggle, the good angels have won.
Yes, the foes of extending health insurance to the needy have not yet disappeared.
Some, including presumptive presidential candidate Mitt Romney, vow they will continue to fight to overturn the program.
These efforts have served narrow, wealthy interests - and they continue to do so, frequently dishonestly, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman reminds us today.
Remember “death panels”?
Krugman writes about the "cruelty" that characterizes the anti-reformers, who have never -- repeat, never -- advocated for the uninsured, those often left behind by circumstances beyond their control.
Republicans vow they will work to overturn the Affordable Health Care Act. But what will they replace it with? And can you trust those who have never come to the health care table over these past seven decades?
Writes Krugman:
... what was and is really striking about the anti-reformers is their cruelty. It would be one thing if, at any point, they had offered any hint of an alternative proposal to help Americans with pre-existing conditions, Americans who simply can’t afford expensive individual insurance, Americans who lose coverage along with their jobs. But it has long been obvious that the opposition’s goal is simply to kill reform, never mind the human consequences. We should all be thankful that, for the moment at least, that effort has failed.
Yes, indeed, thankful.
