The Republican Agenda on Health Care and Immigration

It seems to me that the Republican Party's callous attitude towards Immigration and Health Care Reform is clearly opposite the way of fairness and mercy, and that makes it so much easier for me to know where to stand on political affairs. I am confident and clear in my soul in saying I stand against the Republican Party on the matter of how to deal with Immigration, because their stand does not show compassion towards the stranger and outcast in our land. With regard to Health Care Reform, if you have much experience at all in this society, you know many people who have suffered deeply from not having health care insurance or affordable health care insurance. To think we can simply go on and ignore that, seems very, very callous.

We have enough of a conscience in our country to require treatment of uninsured persons in emergency situations, but we aren't honest enough to admit that so many of those who appear with emergencies are the uninsured who could not afford to get regular check-ups or get medical care for a problem before it became life-threatening. Truth is, in many cases, the lack of care is devastating. A woman had symptoms of a serious gastro-intestinal problem, but was still in a probationary period at work, so that she had no medical insurance. By the time she got her medical insurance through work and went to get checked, her cancer was so far advanced that all the doctors could try to do was try some last ditch efforts at chemotherapy and control her pain for the last six months of her life. Now, this woman would almost certainly have died from this cancer, but with early detection/treatment, she might very well have lived two or three or four or more years like another man that I know who had the same type of cancer which was treated aggressively when discovered when symptoms first arose. He had health care insurance. Of course, we can't know exactly how it would have gone for the woman mentioned above, but don't we want her to have as good a chance as the man mentioned? And, aren't an extra two, three, four years of life something of inestimable value?

I commend Barack Obama for having the fortitude to shake up the status quo in this area of health care reform. I have not been terribly impressed with his efforts in Immigration Reform (the last president had a good plan for this, but couldn't sell it to his own party). But, back to Health Care Reform. And, all this complaining about it happening in "back-room" deals! We have so little understanding of how laws are actually made in this country and how politics works at every level (or maybe we just like to pretend). It has been hurtful to the Obama administration to have been as "transparent" as it has been. This country will never accept the way laws are made if it has to see the truth. The public would be shocked if it knew how criminal cases are negotiated and resolved as well. Of course, people make deals. As long as they are not illegal deals, it is both acceptable and necessary in politics and law practice.

Though I certainly am not qualified to address the issues on health care, I certainly am concerned when over 30 million of my fellow citizens in this country have no health care insurance. And, I want to support those who don't want to tolerate this intolerable situation any longer.

The attitudes of citizens around this country on immigration vary greatly. Many of those who are fairly quiet people believe in showing the utmost compassion and decency towards illegal aliens who are here working hard and trying to live among us in peace. But, those who are loud don't agree. The loud people most always get their positions on the news, but loud people are usually wrong in life. They just dont' take enough time to listen and observe what is going on. They are too busy talking and wanting others to observe them.

Political parties are generally dominated by "loud people." Maybe there are some quieter Republicans who are saying some better things. If they are, they certainly need better press agents.