Commentary By Adam Smith

The North Jefferson News



A roaring fire which started in Washington, D.C., has spread across the United States.

That roaring fire is called health care reform.

In actuality, the roaring fire started in the mind of President Barack Obama as he watched his mother die of cancer. He saw a mountain of bureaucratic red tape that sick patients had to cut through to get the best healthcare.

So, upon being elected president, he decided to do something about it. He has taken the load on his shoulders of trying to fix our nation’s struggling health care system.

It is no doubt of great personal importance to him that the system be fixed and be fixed in a hurry. However, not so fast, Mr. President.

You’ve got a serious problem with this health care thing. First of all, you’ve got millions of Americans who don’t want it. Even worse, you’ve got millions of Americans who don’t want it and they really don’t know why they don’t want it.

First of all, they don’t want it because it’s something you want. They also don’t want it because your plan will kill the nation’s senior citizens and republicans. Shame on you for trying to silence your detractors with your shoddy health care system.

All right, reality check time. The president’s health care bill is about 1,018 pages long. Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” is just shy of 1,300 pages in its current hardback form.

So, reading Obama’s health care bill would be a lot like reading “War and Peace,” only slightly shorter and much more tedious. Even worse, the plot stinks and there’s not much chance for a movie or Cliff’s Notes adaptation.

However, I haven’t read “War and Peace.” I never had to. However, I do feel compelled to start reading the health care bill. Whether or not I read “War and Peace” will likely not change my life for better or worse, unlike the future of my health care plan.

Are you for or against Obama’s plan? Have you read it? Why not? Do you feel comfortable being against something that you know nothing about?

It’s kind of like being an atheist if you’ve never been to church. How can you hate or not believe in something you’ve never been educated on?

Herein lies the problem with the health care debate. I am not for or against the plan. I haven’t read it, so I don’t feel as though I am educated enough about the plan to be in favor of it or opposed to it.

I wish more people in the nation shared my view about this very issue. Unfortunately, there are idiots, morons, simpletons, mean people, communists, fascists, etc. etc. on BOTH the left and the right who are backing or denouncing something they know nothing about.

Is that what America has come to? Have we really gotten so low and petty? What has happened to our sense of research? What has become of our information-gathering skills?

The only thing I will say about health care is that it truly is a broken system. Medicare and Medicaid, both of which are government-run health programs, have been broken for a long time.

For me, the health care debate has stirred internal questions of: Is health care a privilege or a right? If it’s a right, who is it a right for? Should those living on American soil illegally be granted the same health care privileges or should we let that person wither and die?

Jesus, what would you do? Can you give us a little guidance here?

This debate isn’t going away anytime soon, nor is the problem of our broken health care system.

I do hope I live to see our health system provide the best treatment possible to Americans in a manner that will not break them financially.

I also hope I live to see the day where Americans have educated themselves about such a timely, sensitive issue before raising their voices to favor or oppose it.

Being the cynic I am, I do not foresee either one of these hopes coming to fruition.

Now if you’ll pardon me, I have some reading to do.