BY SHARON MARTIN
What do our representatives have against insurance coverage for all? Why would a legislator who receives benefits from the Farm Bill choose to cut the food stamp [SNAP] program, knowing that 98% of the people in Oklahoma who receive food aid are children and their caregivers, the elderly, the disabled, and the working poor?
Why are elected officials, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, and Rep. Eric Cantor, R-VA, lying to the American people about the Affordable Care Act? Who benefits if people are denied medical coverage? If children go hungry?
Nothing is going to change in this country until the poor people – that’s most of us, folks – get sick and tired of being bamboozled. We need to educate ourselves about the truth, and we need to stand against greed.
The bamboozlers wouldn’t get away with the cheating and the lying if so many of the bamboozled didn’t go along.
I have a dear friend who takes in stray dogs. She will drop anything to take care of a friend. Her hospitality doesn’t extend to the hungry and the uninsured, however.
“I’m tired of paying taxes to feed someone who won’t work,” she says.
I’ve seen the numbers from the Oklahoma Policy Institute. Few people get SNAP in Oklahoma who can work but don’t. I tell her so. She doesn’t hear.
“I work hard for my insurance,” she says.
I’m married to a man who has been self-employed his whole life. The self-employed have to find their own insurance, if they can.
Then there are people who earn minimum wage. Many of them work as hard as she does, but they can’t afford insurance.
With the Affordable Care Act, things will improve for the self-employed and the working poor.
How do we explain to those who are afraid they’re paying someone else’s way that it is not only a Biblical imperative that we treat each other with kindness but it is better for us all to do so?
How do we make it clear that until the 99% band together, the 1% will take everything they can get their hands on. They are doing it now, not only with our permission but with our help.
In the book of Hebrews, we are told that we must be kind to strangers, that we may be entertaining angels.
Let’s feed the hungry, ensure access to quality healthcare, and provide decent education to the next generation. Let us, as Lincoln said, entertain “the better angels of our nature.”
Together, we can do what is right.
– Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
While I agree that all Americans need health insurance, I do have to disagree with a few points. The main debate is who should pay for those who cannot afford health insurance. Even the new programs are not affordable for all Americans. Some Americans barely have a savings after paying bills. The ACA claims to have a solution to this. It has made state insurance more available to lower income families.
But who should pay for this? Those who barely have enough to get by and have bought insurance like they have been required to? They should not be forced to pay for others health care. The health care system itself needs to be corrected. The system is based on revenue, not on how it can improve the lives of others. To make health care truly affordable, we need to stop focusing on how to make money and instead focus on how lives can be improved.
While yes we do need to look out for our fellow man, should those who work hard have to look after those who refuse to take care of themselves? Those who are capable, but completely unwilling, to contribute to society? These are the questions some people have about this Act. Many do not believe that we should help those who refuse to help themselves. For, as the Bible says, God helps those who help themselves.