How Could You Not Vote for Affordable Health Care?

By Dian Vujovich

It troubles me that not one Republican voted “yah” in last night’s historic health care reform bill. Don’t Republics get sick? Haven’t any of them or those in their families lost health care coverage for one reason or another? Don’t they know of anyone who has been duped by an insurance company that they’ve faithfully paid years of health care premiums to? Haven’t a one of them ever had to face the reality that all sorts of never-imagined health problems can and more often than not do crop up over the course of one’s life?

Are those who are against providing health care to all American’s ignorant of the fact that inside each of us there is a family history of health issues as individual as our DNA? Or is it all about money?

If it’s the latter, here’s the deal: Health care costs money. Always has. Always will. Life in America costs money. Always has. Always will. Taxes in America go up and go down. Always have. Always will.

Sticking to the costs and tax part of that paragraph, let’s talk costs. The insurance industry began jacking up premiums to those they cover months ago just as those in the credit card industry did with interest payments before the credit card reform bill went into effect. Sort of a slimy move on both fronts, if you ask me.

So already the cost of health care has increased before any reform bill has been put in place. But then again, health care premiums always go up. And the older one gets, or the more health challenges they face, the higher those premiums become. Given that reality, I don’t understand the scare complaint about how this bill will make premiums go up. Based upon my life experiences, they have every single year.

Now let’s talk the tax thing. Next year, in 2011, thanks to the W’s tax reform bill, tax rates revert to back to what they were during the Clinton administration (39 percent-ish). You remember that era, don’t you? Life was pretty good for many back then— including the life in the government’s balance sheets.

During Bill’s reign the maximum personal income tax rate was 39.6 percent. Nothing to really be fearful of once it dawns on you that the funny thing about higher taxes is that it brings in more money to government coffers. Additionally, that higher rate is reasonable given that income tax rates for those in the highest income brackets have been as high as 50 percent in the mid 1980’s and 70 percent in the early 1980s!

People have short memories when it comes to tax rates. Always have. Always will.

As for the stock market, according to iStockanalyst.com, an email newsletter, a year after Social Security was passed, the Dow closed up over 29 percent. Twelve months after Medicare/Medicaid passed it was down 5 percent. In fairness, there is no way to prove the rise or fall of the DJIA had anything to due with the passing of either pieces of legislature.

Also in fairness, Social Security and Medicare/Medicare are expensive programs. But I haven’t heard of anyone in Congress, no matter their party affiliation, who would give up their Medicare/ Medicare health care benefits or vote “nay” to the Social Security checks they either are or one day may be receiving.

So money can’t be the issue here. But if not money, then what?