On Repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Sent Wednesday, July 11, 2012.  No response as of 7/13/12


Representative Sensenbrenner,


I would like to try to understand why our House of Representatives has decided to spend an entire day voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act.


It seems to me that our country has bigger issues to deal with especially when we consider that most OECD member countries offer their citizens coverage comparable to what our elected officials receive.  In the US, however, perhaps one of the wealthiest nations in the history of civilization, our elected leaders refuse to look after the welfare of the people and instead expect the poor, the indigent, the uneducated, and everybody else to navigate the intentionally convoluted terms of private insurance companies that are out to maximize profits rather than offer medical coverage.  


Would it be so troubling to our elected officials if the type of medical coverage we, the people, provide for them, the people's representatives, were to be extended to us, the people?


Instead, it seems that our representatives would like to debate a law that has been passed and upheld by the highest court, and offer the public as a viable solution to the recession "voodoo economics" again - an economics system that does not work.   As we see today, luxury items sales are on the rise even while our economic woes continue to cascade millions into the pits of impoverished despair.


To me, and many others in this country, it would seem far more applicable to the people for elected officials to be more concerned about the levels of concentrated wealth over the past 40 years.  


In many countries, there are caps on executive pay.  It seems that the time has come for what Thomas Paine would have described as the necessary evil of government intervention.   When a society fails to function well on a fundamental level, we require government to intervene.  It is a fundamental truth of our Constitution that government provide for the welfare of the people.   This very central idea to our republic may be far more worthy to debate than attempting to repeal a law that many Americans need because they are living with pre-existing conditions and cannot get healthcare coverage without this legislation.


What we ought to be focusing our attention on in this country is reducing our military budget, an astronomical $700 billion, and its impact on the rest of the world, and rather concentrating on domestic development.  At no time should a child in the United States go without food nor should monetary gain take precedence over people.  That seems to be utterly reprehensible and immoral behavior from a country founded by great thinkers.


Shouldn't Congress be focused on raising the quality of life for all the citizens of the United States?  Afterall are we not the people written about in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  I would venture to guess that we are.


Voting for the repeal of a law that has already been enacted and deemed to be constitutional by the Supreme Court and also in many ways beneficial to many Americans seems utterly wasteful when a plethora of other challenges face this great nation.  


If there is a valid explanation for this time-wasting, I am sure I would not be the only citizen interested in hearing about it.


Sincerely,