THE NEED FOR A JUST HEALTHCARE SYSTEM by Salvatore Buttaci

The issue of healthcare in a altruistic society is a rallying cry for citizens to band together for the good of all. A society that believes in the old adage “One for all and all for one!”

recognizes that healthcare across the board is imperative, not merely for some but for everyone in that society, and for some to be deprived of healthcare is to admit an absence of justice.

America is not the altruistic, neighbor-loving society about which Socrates wrote in his dialogues, that ideal state where the Philosopher-king benevolently ruled and all was right with his subjects and their world. Sorry to say, we Americans misinterpret the virtuous work ethics of the early pioneers. Instead of seeing the positive value of such ethics, we distort them into a “me-first” mentality. Our main objective in life remains “What’s in it for me?” We are not willing to allow anyone or anything or any legislation to threaten our comfort zones. We are all for one, and we stop there.

Healthcare is not an issue at all for those whose employers provide what they need. They are duly employed and when illness comes, their medical insurance coverage will take care of them. Nor is healthcare an issue for politicians whose election to Congression guarantees full medical coverage, not only for terms in office, but for life. Why should they risk the ire of pharmaceutical lobbyists who support their elections?  

President Obama has become the scapegoat in this war against a just healthcare system.  Propaganda machines churns out to Americans lies about what his proposals will fail to do. Propagandists know from the lessons of history that if you scare the public enough, pump them with outright lies, they will fall in step and oppose even those measures meant to keep them healthy and alive.

Obama walks in the footsteps of former great Americans like Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Franklin Roosevelt who, though wealthy men, possessed a strong social consciousness and respect for those humane objectives a national leader should concern himself. We have seen some Presidents try and fail.  We have seen others refuse to take the helm that would steer the ship of state into safe and healthy harbors for all Americans. We have seen Presidents blindside us with debilitating and costly wars or turn their backs on Wall Street so the robber barons could drive our nation to the brink of bankruptcy.

Those who don’t need healthcare resent the poor who have no way of gaining this enviable coverage. Those who are high on the income scale see no economic reason to take from their huge bank accounts money to help the impoverished and the struggling middle class. But what about those who would benefit from a newfound altruism? Those who labor in the fields and in the factories but earn so little or work for employers who either cannot afford to insure them or refuse to take from their own bag of profits? What about the retired Americans on income so fixed they can hardly survive? How many times have we heard it said that some senior citizens must daily decide between eating or paying for needed medications? Should this be happening in America? 

What is frightening to me, and should be to the majority of our nation, is the agenda of politicians seeking election to presidential, gubernatorial, and congressional office, as well as the conservative members of the Supreme Court who preside for life. Presidential-hopeful Mit Romney often informs the American people outright that if elected he will do all in his executive power to kill Obamacare which, by the way, was modeled after his Romneycare program in Massachusetts some years ago.  

The economic plight in which we find ourselves, had other than Presidential Obama at the helm, would have been so much more devastating. We have merely to cast an eye at Greece to see the implications. Saving the American auto giants was a stroke of wisdom. Would John McCain have done likewise? And if he would not have, would those constituents who voted for him and his running mate Sarah Palin rued the day they took office? Diehard Republicans need to listen more closely to the intentions of Obama opponents more diligently these months before the November election. They should avoid cutting off their noses to spite their faces where the American economy is concerned. As for Republican slogans like “Get rid of Big “Bib” Government,” (feeding and servicing the needy), this is not the time to play down majority needs while increasing the coffers of the rich. And excuses like “We should not be forced to buy healthcare,” can easily be countered with “We should not be refused healthcare because insurance companies are allowed by law to refuse members with pre-existing conditions.” 

Say what you want about Obama and his healthcare law. Insist things were better in the previous Bush presidential administration. I personally believe two of my political heroes––both Roosevelts, TR and FDR––are rooting for a second Obama term.

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Salvatore Buttaci’s work has appeared widely in publications that include New York Times, U. S. A. Today, The Writer, Writer’s Digest, Cats Magazine, The National Enquirer, Christian Science Monitor, A Word with You Press, Thinking Ten, Pen 10, and Six Sentences. He was the recipient of the $500 Cyber-wit Poetry Award in 2007. He was also one of the winners in the 2011 Franklin-Christoph Fine Writing Instrument Poetry Contest.

His collection of flash fiction, 200 Shorts, is the new follow-up to his collection of 164 short-fiction stories, Flashing My Shorts. Both published by All Things That Matter Press are available in book and Kindle editions at http://www.kindlegraph.com/authors/sambpoet 

His new book If Roosters Don’t Crow, It Is Still Morning: Haiku and Other Poems:

http://tinyurl.com/7ssnzg4 

Buttaci lives in West Virginia with Sharon, the love of his life.