GREEN Reactor: Paging Doctor GREEN

After the elections last year I made it clear that I no longer consider myself a Democrat (see “Farewell Democrats”).  No, I didn’t jump to the dark side — but I no longer trust that the Dems as a party are willing to push hard enough toward the goals that we as a society must reach to provide what mankind needs to survive and thrive.  I’ve turned to the Green Party to fill that void, and I will do everything I can to increase its viability in our political process.

The Green Party isn’t just for tree-huggers, it’s a full-platform political party with a slate of 10 values backing its positions.  Among them is the value that I hold most dear: SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY.  And it is hard to find a better example of LACK of social justice/equal opportunity in today’s world than this one: Access to health care.  This absolutely is a GREEN issue.

Here in Florida the situation is atrocious.  Every fourth person you meet is likely to NOT have health insurance – the key to our health care system.  It’s not just those that the “got-mines” consider to be “social leaches” (i.e., the poor).  It also includes hard working people who – though they can get by on the paycheck they earn — would have to skip meals or turn off the heat if forced to pay the exorbitant cost that our high-profit health-insurance companies charge those not lucky enough to have an employer subsidy.  (And note that every day the big corporate employers and Teapublican-lead government employers are steadily taking away those EARNED subsidies – and small businesses can rarely afford them anyway.)

Indeed only two other states have fewer uninsured than Florida does.   If you look closer, you’ll find that some of your friends or relatives are among those.  Maybe YOU are.  Are they (or you) all deadbeats?  All of these people are – as they say – “one hospital visit away from bankruptcy”.  This was illustrated tragically in Key West recently when long-time resident and small businessman Diver Dan’s tumbled from a tree.  The subsequent help-the-family fund-raisers (which always barely put a dent into expenses being billed) cannot HOPE to take the place of a FAIR medical system.  A system where those who need the care will GET it, rather than one where those who cannot afford the big bucks must gamble with their lives.

And the craziest aspect to this state of affairs is that the very people who want to stick with it are paying ever more out of their own pockets to keep it going!  Every major medical bill for the uninsured that gets written off for non-payment is a tax break sucking from the taxes that we all pay.  Every expense that can NOT be written off gets amortized over the bills that everybody else (who CAN pay) has to pay.   This isn’t just true for the major bankruptcy-inducing injuries and illnesses – it also includes the BIG bucks charged for using the emergency room to care for minor illnesses (by those without insurance) — many of which would have never required a hospital visit if there were access to affordable preventative care in the first place.  Billions and billions WASTED every year.

Obamacare COULD have been a good step toward the Social Justice we need to move forward as a civilized society. Unfortunately Barack’s (ultimately fruitless) efforts to compromise with the opposition watered it down considerably.  But it’s still a good start, and so…..the Teapublicans HATE that fact.  To the point that they are doing everything possible to tear it down.  Even to the point of stomping on their contracts to serve the people.  They’d rather do actual HARM to their own constituents rather than work with the lawfully adopted program to expand our healthcare and reduce its price.

They’ve convinced themselves that their tactics – which will force us all to pay MORE than Obamacare was designed to cost, and will continue to keep care away from the MILLIONS of people who can’t get it now – will all be blamed on Obama.   But even our ILLustrious Governor Scott saw the folly of this tactic, and grudging signaled his willingness to move forward with a key segment of Obamacare this year.  It would provide $53 BILLION dollars to our state to add healthcare coverage for about a MILLION uninsured Floridians – some of them your and my friends and relatives.  The cost to the state is NOTHING — the money is already allocated.   If  we don’t take it they’ll give it to other less backward states who do care about their people.

 Our state senate, too, was wise enough to begin moving forward, seeing that it would be to ALL of our benefit.  But the Teapublicans dominating our State House, which is stacked with backwoods-county small-thinking (dare I evoke the “R”(acist)-word?)  representatives, left it all on the table.  Can’t be seen as supporting Obama, no-siree.

If you ain’t got yours, the prescription is “Heal thyself.”