Sick and Tired: The Circus Returns to the Health-Care Debate (Maybe)

Obamacare may be back in the courts… again. Once again, a potential year will be wasted in a partisan fight that can lead to no real forward progress. Once again, politicians may sling mud, hyperbole, and wild accusations back and forth across the aisle. And once again, reasonable, thinking people of all political stripes who have somehow held onto that long-lost ability to find common ground and overcome differences of opinion will sit on the sidelines and watch our national health-care debate become yet another nonsensical circus!

In case you can’t tell by my first paragraph, or my title, I am simply beyond tired of the ongoing political fight over the health-care law. I’m sick of it because it’s NEVER about substantive change or real reform; it’s never about finding real solutions to issues and finding that middle ground where we, as a country, can actually move forward; it’s never about identifying the empirically backed, scientifically derived methods that might actually advance patient care and accessibility. No, it’s about which side is going to “win.”

Our political system is in shambles right now. It’s a mess that I often fear is beyond any real repair. Congress becomes more and more and radicalized, divided, ideologically driven and downright CRAZY on a daily basis. And we all lose. People on this site have written about their experiences with Obamacare — some have talked about how much it has helped them, others have shared the ways in which it HURT them. It is absolutely an imperfect law. And its shortcomings need to be addressed. But to address them would require actual dialogue, something our elected officials are not only reluctant to do, but are vehemently poised AGAINST, particularly those on the extreme right (I hate to bring a side into this, but the Tea Party needs to be called to account here).

John Boehner’s resignation was met with wild cheers by his radical right colleagues. Why? He was chastised because he wanted to prevent a shutdown of the federal government and because he, on occasion, actually entertained the idea of working across the aisle. That’s seen as sign of weakness in today’s congress. We don’t have statesmen, we have gladiators, fanatical ideologues who come crashing into the halls of congress on fervent “missions,” with a zealotry usually reserved for religious missionaries. They come to Congress poised to FIGHT, not govern!

And WE are the ones who are hurt by this wild dysfunction, my dear readers! We, the people who rely on the health-care system; we, the people whose lives are completely at the mercy of the medical establishment; we, who literally cannot SURVIVE without access to health care! Of course, we don’t all agree on the solutions, but I would hope that we might all agree on one thing: It’s time for our elected leaders to stop SUING each other, demonizing each other, and turning OUR health care into nothing more than a playground fight amongst a bunch of out-of-control fifth graders!

If you agree with this, please, all of you who understand the value of dialogue and reason, on both the left and the right, make your voices heard. Contact your congressmen and tell them it’s time to grow up. It’s time they govern like sane adults who care more about real-world outcomes for us, the people THEY WORK FOR, than they do about “which side wins.” Stand up and demand it through every channel you have. Because this nonsense has simply got to stop. Our health-care system is too important for this circus to continue any longer!