Watch what politicians do, not what they say
The idea of paying attention to actions more than words should be obvious, but more and more people fall for the rhetoric of their favorite politicians. It simply takes too much work to look into the results and intentions of policies and actions.
We don’t have to look much further than the current healthcare debate to see this. The GOP Healthcare proposal will hurt the very people who were the loudest supporters of Trump and the GOP.
The GOP sold a story. The story starts with the idea that there are many people who are living off the government, not working, not paying taxes. These people are taking money from hard-working Americans so that they can live the good life without lifting a finger.
There are many hardworking Americans who cannot afford to have even $1 of their money go to such leeches. These people worry about where their next paycheck will come from and how to put food on the table. Of course, they will get upset to think there are people taking their hard-earned money from them so that they can be lazy leeches. That idea would be quite upsetting.
But when you look at the policies, “the leeches” in this story seem to be the hardworking Americans who need a little more help via Medicare or Medicaid when life deals them more than they can handle, whether it comes from an illness, an accident, or a drug addiction.
The current healthcare bill is structured so that those who have more money are not subsidizing those with less money. You see, those with more money have worked hard for their money and should not have to pay for the misfortunes of others.
If you are one of those hardworking Americans who bought the story that your tax dollars should not fund the lazy lifestyle of leeches, guess what? In the story of this healthcare bill, you are the leeches.
The stories politicians weave are ones of values, morals, and logic that their base can get behind. In the case of this healthcare bill, they use the term “personal responsibility.” What hard-working American would not get behind the idea of personal responsibility? Those are great words, especially for an independent American. Except that as a hardworking American individual, the cards are stacked against you by the conglomerate of healthcare industries whose main goal is to increase their monetary value for their stakeholders. The idea of personal responsibility is only logical if we have rules that keep the playing field level. But we don’t. We have big money and big business setting the rules in their favor.
I recently launched a community get-together for bi-partisan conversations about policies. I highly recommend that this idea spread far and wide. What I have learned from these get-togethers is that most of us are actually much more aligned than we believe. We have allowed the games of politics to divide us. Our first conversation was about healthcare and many of us had different ideas about what the solutions were, but each solution came with compassion for the individual and we all agreed that the current situation was more focused on making money for the insurance carriers than on serving the health needs of society. On the more conservative side, the idea was that we needed much more transparency in the cost of services and the ability to pick the insurance that we needed. For example, if we knew that X,Y, and Z services cost a specific amount, or that we could comparison shop for such services, we might decide that we would prefer to pay out of pocket for those services and only opt-in for insurance for services that may happen to us which we would not be able to pay out of pocket for. That makes sense, but that is not what we are getting with the GOP healthcare bill.
I was the more liberal person in the group and the idea of healthcare as a right (which is the typical liberal argument) was shot down immediately. The argument was that we do not have a right to something that requires taking from someone else. This is the same idea as we hard-working Americans should not have to pay for those leeches. I am fine with that argument actually because I do not see health care as a right, I see it as an investment. Healthy citizens are productive citizens.
Why would the wealthy elite not recognize health care as an investment? Because that would be an investment in individuality. If we had universal healthcare, why would we need to find a permanent job? We could all work as independent contractors and freelancers living a life according to our needs and priorities.
Already 1 in 3 people are freelancers and that number is expected to increase in the next few years. Technical advancements have enabled us to market our skills, build networks, and work independently. In fact, most people I know who have not taken the freelancer leap say it is because they need the health insurance that is offered at their company.
Is Universal Healthcare a threat to corporations who need to keep a workforce tied to their desks?
So often I get frustrated witnessing people rallying and voting for a politician and policies that actually are going to harm them personally. The question is why don’t people see this? The reason is that the words “personal responsibility” and not subsidizing those who have not worked to be at a certain level is a message practically every hard-working person can relate to. But they are only listening to the words. If they looked at the policies, they would understand that in the eyes of the corporate elite, they are the leeches that wealthy elites are trying to shake off as well as enslave.
Stop listening, start watching. Are the politicians you are supporting, supporting you?
