Unhappy? Blame the party in control
To the editor:
About 10 years ago then-candidate Trump proclaimed he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. That still appears true for some supporters. History will not be kind to them-or Trump-but for now we need to cope with both. Case in point: A letter from John Benedict (May 1) suggests our financially out-of-control medical costs are the fault of “the blue party” which wants to “spend even more money on a system awash in money”! Wait, what? In Florida the “blue party” controls nothing; nationally the same is true. The “red party” eliminated the bipartisan national Affordable Care program President Obama pressed for and has yet to replace it, even in part.
The writer contrasts emergency care in Europe and longevity with those metrics here in the U.S.; we are far worse in both, which is not a recent phenomenon. The letter fails to note that Europeans spend a greater percentage of their income on healthcare through their higher taxes. This also is true for other “socialistic programs” (family leave, retirement, etc) which “the red party” rejects like a plague.
The letters rail about all sorts of other real problems we face in our healthcare systems but never acknowledges they cross political boundaries and have been with us for generations. Perhaps most tellingly, the letter does not address the concrete attempts to better serve American consumers and disrupt the influence of powerful lobbies have come from the “blue party.” Instead the letter cites the “rampant Somali Fraud in Minnesota” (ignoring that of Florida) and offers no new ideas.
Hopefully the writer read the other letters which followed his; they provided suggestions for a course correction, although each involved the “blue party” returning to power.
Apropos of our National Birthday two columnists in another local weekly both noted that our Founding Fathers never envisioned a professional politician class, serving in Congress as a career (and retiring with lifetime benefits such as healthcare).
Idealistically, they would serve a term as a patriotic duty and then return to their actual profession. Senators were selected by their state legislature, not popular vote, until the 17th Amendment in 1913. In contrast Supreme Court justices were nominated to serve for their lifetime, in the naive belief that would free them from political bias or outside interference.
We know how well that is working out.
Billy Herman
Cape Coral