I had a post ready for today, but felt that the SCOTUS ruling on healthcare needed a comment.

First I am glad that as a nation we can now move ahead with the task of rolling out health care access to all Americans. Thus we enter the 20th century compared to all other industrialized nations. We have steps to go to join the 21st century, but at least the journey has begun finally.

Second, Republicans will still not give up their grip of controlling people’s health care. Those represented by the Republican Party believe their destiny is to control the lives of those of us who are not in their opinion able to control our own lives. They have various ways of maintaining that control, such as what decisions a woman can make about her reproductive system, who can vote, who can be allowed into the country, what we are taught and on and on.

Controlling people’s access to healthcare is a major way to control people. If a person can’t access health care, their ability to function as a full citizen is impaired as they are not able to control their own life. Now Republicans no longer have that power over others’  lives. This is a huge break in the control they have had. For example, people will soon be able to leave their jobs and still have access to health care on an affordable basis. The employer no longer will have the chain of health insurance to tether an employee.

Third, I simply can’t see a Republican Party that will hold together much longer with a platform of taking away access to health care, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid along with their traditional platform of denying the vote to classes of people, wrecking the public school system and things like teaching science. What they stand for as a party has become toxic to any sensient human. We can expect desertion from their ranks as they lose election after election.

Fourth, we were just handed a major issue for the statehouse. With the need for health care exchanges needing to be prepared at each state level, there is a stark question for the voter: Do you want the health care exchange (and any subsequent changes) to be made by representatives that want to make things work for all citizens, or by those bent on destroying the system? For me, the choice is obvious. As a stakeholder in this country, I want someone who will work their butt off to make the entity work to its best.

Finally, I hope that soon I will never see one of those canisters on the convenience store counter with a story of some poor child that has cancer, has no insurance and their family is now destitute due to the medical bills. If that isn’t just about the saddest commentary on America, I don’t know what is.

I can’t understand why, in what is by far the richest country in history, a small segment can choose to deny basic medical care to one-fifth of their own countrymen. I can think of no rational reason for doing so. Just as a couple of generations ago these same folks worked hard to deny citizenship to a segment of the population whose only sin was the color of their skin. The Chief Justice in those days was Earl Warren, a Republican appointee who was expected to stop change, became one of the leaders of change because it was the right and constitutional thing to do. Maybe John Roberts’ conscience has been awakened.

No doubt Republicans will be using this decision to raise yet even more money than the already enormous amount they have on hand. Please remember this is but one instance of where Americans are being freed from the control of others. if you help them out you are helping them take control of your life once more.

One last comment – why do Republicans hate people? What have we done that has made them so mad that they insist that 45 million of their fellow countrymen must live without insurance and the risks associated with that? Do we smell? Are we crazy? Are we so repugnant that we must never have the rights and privileges of full citizens?  They want to limit our healthcare, they try to take away our votes, they send our jobs to China and cut the wages of those jobs that stay here, they try to deny food to those among us that are poor. Is their money so precious that they must starve their fellow countrymen? I am so tired of their politics of hate and exclusion. It is like an updated version of the old South gone national.

But I fear the battle will now move to the states where Republican governors – like our own Terry Branstad – will do all they can to deny health coverage to their own citizens. Outrageous!