Obamacare. The ubiquity of this essentially denigrating term is astonishing. It is uttered by the citizenry, splashed in headlines across the front pages of metropolitan newspapers, included in news broadcasts, explained by pundits and. Of course, exploited by politicians. Even members of Team Obama have made reference to Obamacare as if to relent to the public recognition and forget about the implications of the label. Lost in the widespread use of this term which has embedded itself in our lexicon is that it originated as an insult to the Democratic nominee in the 2012 race against Mitt Romney. As all campaign workers do, the Romney staff spent most of their time thinking of clever catch phrases, keywords, rhymes or any other hooks that would resonate with the public and portray Obama as incompetent. While all of this strategizing left precious little time for the creation of policy proposals, someone on the Romney, Inc. marketing staff, picked up a bat, took a swing and hit a home run with the creation of the term “Obamacare.” One of the foundations of candidate Obama’s policy platform was the determination to help solve the problems of health care costs rising at an alarming rate for those with health insurance and to find a way to provide health care for between 40 and 50 million Americans with no health insurance whatsoever. When the Romney camp characterized this as Obamacare, the term spread like an epidemic. Clearly the term was designed to invoke a connotation between the proposed health care initiative and welfare, a concept that has become increasingly distasteful to Americans since Republicans from Ronald Reagan to the twin cabals of the Bush Dynasty convinced hard-working Americans that individuals who lived in poverty had only themselves to blame and that accepting any government support was little more than mooching off of the more responsible among us. Let’s be clear about something. There is no such thing as Obamacare. There is the Affordable Health Care Act, a bill drawn to address the fact that drastically escalating health care costs are draining the budgets of those who have health insurance and to somehow grant access to health care for the tens of millions of Americans who don’t have the means to pay for health insurance. Consequently, Obamacare, the snappy, easy to remember term implies the expansion of a welfare state (or rather, how the socialists dance), While the Affordable Health Care Act implies that we restructure and expand health care for our citizens. The Republicans on Capitol Hill seem determined to shut down the government to prevent the implementation of Obamacare, when in fact, they will be cutting off government services to gut funding for the Affordable Health Care Act
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 22:22:03 +0000
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