Groundhog Day

Groundhog day is one of America's great tradition. We send folks to college, make them learn all kinds of stuff about the atmosphere and how storms develop and track. Then every February we put our trust in an oversize rodent in charge of how much longer winter is going to be based on if it does or does not see its shadow. Makes perfect sense to me. Seems the other day the House of Representatives took the same approach regarding the Affordable Care Act. I don't like the other term for it so I use this one. Tuesday (Groundhog Day) our elected representatives came out of their holes (offices) and saw the shadow of health care for millions blocking the sunshine of freedom. They voted for the 56th time to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Sorry folks, not a misprint. Fifty six times. Why this time? Well you got a bunch of new folks in the House of Representative (freshmen or women Congressfolks) and they hadn't gotten the opportunity to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act yet. They want to be able to go back to the folks in the home district and say I did my best to get rid of that damn medical care but there just weren't enough votes. Just know if you send me back after the next election you know what I will do.

Let's take a look at the numbers. Somewhere around 19 million folks have insurance now who didn't four years ago. About six million young people under the age of 26 have been able to stay on their parents insurance. People with preexisting conditions are able to get coverage. Where is the Republican alternative? The first repeal vote was held in January 2011. In four years we have seen nothing, absolutely nothing from the Republican folks in Congress to provide health insurance if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. Zero, zip, zilch, nada, nothing, goose egg, shutout. They continually talk about the United States being a Christian nation. One might reasonably ask the question: "What Would Jesus Do?" It has been a while since I read the Bible but I believe my reading indicated he went around healing the sick. Don't recall him charging any money for healing them. Free health care. Holy ^$(#Y(^# Jesus was a socialist. Bad for the funeral businesses as well. Seems to me he raised up a couple of dead guys. Now that's some health care plan. Wait, I got the Republican plan. It's free health care too. Jesus told people that their faith made the whole. It was the source of their healing. So our dear Republican friends have a plan for free health care. You stay home and pray to God. If you aren't healed it's your fault. Not enough faith. You didn't believe. Works for me but I think we should have a pilot program. Let's start with the folks in Congress. We can just defund their health care plan and they can turn to Jesus. They did, after all, take an oath which included the phrase "so help me God". Maybe they could apply that line to their personal health care.