{"id":463438,"date":"2010-03-23T18:27:59","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T22:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011420695_healthcarebillthedebatecontinues.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-03-23T18:27:59","modified_gmt":"2010-03-23T22:27:59","slug":"health-care-bill-the-debate-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/463438","title":{"rendered":"Health-care bill: the debate continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Say it ain\u2019t so, John McCain<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice that in a world of so much rapid change, there\u2019s one constant in modern life \u2014 no matter what it is, the Republicans are agin\u2019 it [\u201cFor Republicans, fight isn\u2019t over,\u201d CloseUp, March 23].<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s very disappointing to see a man of John McCain\u2019s stature \u2014 someone I consider a war hero and a statesman \u2014 vowing to destroy the minutes-old health-care bill and see it repealed before he even gets a chance to see whether or not it might help his constituents in the state of Arizona.<\/p>\n

Arizona is hurting economically, and I wonder how many of McCain\u2019s fellow Arizonans can actually afford health care without a little help?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Carol Lake, Kirkland<\/em><\/p>\n

We should have spoken up<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry that I and others like myself didn\u2019t speak up more about our support of health-care reform. But apparently it is difficult to win the minds of American citizens when competing with people who yell and scream hysterically.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost as if one side said, \u201c1+1=2\u201d and the other side cried and bellowed, \u201cNo, no, 1+1=3. Everyone knows that. If everyone started thinking otherwise, the world would end.\u201d Then a survey was taken, and the majority of people said, \u201c1+1=3.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there had been nice, thought-provoking debate on the issue, and the other side still prevailed, then I would still be upset, but not disillusioned. Fear, and the threat of fearful things, is pretty powerful, apparently. I really hate to think the American people have stopped thinking and started putting their faith in fear.<\/p>\n

I personally have little, if anything, to gain from health-care reform. I have some of the best health insurance around. But I know health-care reform isn\u2019t about me. It\u2019s about others less fortunate. I\u2019m not Christian, but, if I remember correctly back when I was, that used to be part of the Christian doctrine. But things change apparently.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Robert L. Stewart, Renton<\/em><\/p>\n

Polls can be manipulated<\/strong><\/p>\n

The only polls about health care I received (via phone) were so heavily biased and leading that even if you tried to answer the questions to reflect support for universal health care, it would look as if you were against it.<\/p>\n

The election of President Obama reflected the true indication that the majority of Americans do want health-care reform, and being that Democrats don\u2019t always act like sheep, they bicker and argue over details. A start has been made, and details and posturing and fine tuning will continue for years to come, but we have made a compassionate nod to those who aren\u2019t always fortunate enough to have a job\/income to have a decent chance of good health care.<\/p>\n

Do I know all the details of the bill? No, but neither do those who were whipped up into angry mobs. One can only go on basic humanitarian principles.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Brian Hogan, Kent<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Say it ain\u2019t so, John McCain It\u2019s nice that in a world of so much rapid change, there\u2019s one constant in modern life \u2014 no matter what it is, the Republicans are agin\u2019 it [\u201cFor Republicans, fight isn\u2019t over,\u201d CloseUp, March 23]. However, it\u2019s very disappointing to see a man of John McCain\u2019s stature \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}