In case you missed it, this week marked the 1st year anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act. The last 365 have been like going back to freshman year of high school all over again. Back then you expected the work would be much harder, the girls much prettier, and the parties that much better. However, the reality set in: the work was relative; girls same as last year; and the parties overrated.

And so goes the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Some people love it, others hate it. A big part of the problem is the Obama Administration’s failure at packaging this farm of a law into a user-friendly message that everyone gets. This has a disturbingly high number of folks still not knowing what it is — and chances are they felt that way last year too.

Roughly over half of states have joined together in an ‘Amazing Race‘ to the courthouse to strike down the law. In Florida, federal judge Roger Vinson ruled the individual mandate in the Act, which requires citizens to either purchase health insurance or pay a fee, unconstitutional. In fact, that’s what the law’s critics are banking on: the mandate being a legislative overreach that leads to repeal.

I’ve seen a few comments floating around on the Internet that infer that by disagreeing with the narrowly-partisan Democratic Health Care Reform Act, that by default I must not want uninsured Americans to be covered. I cannot let an untrue assertion of such gravity go un-rebuffed. Many of you know that when I’m not politicking, I’m a bilingual interpreter by trade. I’ve therefore been privileged to be present in the medical rooms with patients and their doctors on many occasions. This has afforded me a vivid and firsthand account of the health care needs of the under-served. I have never met a member of congress, R, D, or I, who oppose people being able to see a doctor when they are sick. The motive behind the opposition to this bill rests in the details of the legislation.

1. An alarming number of members of the House reported that they did not have time to read this legislation that was crafted and pushed at the 11th hour. So how could they know that it does what the President says it’s supposed to do?

As the health care debate seems to heat up, I’ve had a few thoughts about the whole drama from my vantage point as someone on the center-right. This is less of magnum opus than some random thoughts on the issue. I should stress these are the thoughts of one person and don’t reflect all Republicans or all moderate Republicans (all twelve of us).

First, I still don’t understand why many Democrats and liberals are so hung up on a public option. I know that the rhetoric is that it is needed to keep the private insurers honest, but to me it seems needless. I mean if we wanted to make sure the insurance companies are playing fair, we would have laws that would ban certain practices like pre-existing conditions or recission and the like. In short we could use regulation. I know that has become an anathema among your typical Republican, but then, I have never been the typical Republican.

As far as the extent to which health care costs are causing further economic strain, look at the number of those who no longer have insurance – an additional nearly 5 million people since Sept. ’08 are uninsured. So how are these people paying for the prescriptions? Better yet, when they must seek care where are they turning to and how are they financing it? Increasingly, foreclosures and bankruptcies are the only way out.

The liberal argument for health care reform is based on emotion and it works. I’m hardly rooting for a single-payer system, but I know what it means to be without healthcare, and as I’ve stated earlier, I know what it is to be sick and without health care. Democrats may have the wrong perscription to solve the issue, but at least they seem to care.

That’s not what I find when I listen to fellow conservatives. There is no talk about what it might mean to not have health care or to have your benefits cut, or to deal with the rising cost of perscription drugs. As Mark notes, there is some talk about “socialized medicine” and how the US has the best health care system in the world and how we should focus on free market solutions.There is no talk about people’s fears or concerns about this issue.

Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman explores the troubling dynamics set into motion by government-run healthcare. Excerpts from a speech delivered in 1978 at the Mayo Clinic.

As a physician of more than thirty years I get concerned when I see the emphasis put on race and economics as the sole cause of health care disparities. High cholesterol comes not just from diet, but lipid or fat disorders and also has a genetic component as deceased tennis great Arthur Ashe’s life demonstrated. Obesity correlates with diet, lack of exercise and sometimes genetics. Diabetes reflects obesity, diet, and genetics.

High blood pressure results from intrinsic poorly understood likely genetic etiologies in 90%+ of the cases; however, the influence of diet, diabetes, and obesity cannot be discounted. Lead exposure on an inner city street where polluting paint and fuel inefficient cars may travel hurt as much as the lack of trees for pollution filtration. Asthma reflects environmental exposures, smoking, and genetics. Lack of access to physicians is often the result of where you live, how much money you can pay for your care and your level of understanding about your health.

Back in 2005, President Bush tried to reform Social Security. I don’t know if his partial privatization plan was the best, but at least he was acknowledging there was a problem with Social Security. Democrats, opposed to privatization, fought back against any reform by saying “there was no crisis.”

In the concern over health care reform this year, many Republicans and conservatives are basically saying the same thing about health care in the United States: there is no crisis.

Less than two weeks ago, while speaking on a panel for Fox News Strategy Room, actress Shery Lee Ralph and I spoke on the incredible silence draped over the issue of HIV and AIDS in America. The reality of AIDS, especially in the black community, is clear but not heard.

The question of which political party will address this issue becomes irrelevant, because of the virulent nature of this deadly virus. Despite President Bush’s unpopular presidency for eight years, the President directed $500 million dollars in federal spending towards HIV-AIDS relief and research, more than any U.S. President in history. Previously during the President Reagan years, the level of knowledge on HIV was minimal in comparison with the medical knowledge of today.

By Cleo E. Brown On Friday, May 15th, 2009 I attended a Geriatrics Mental Health Conference in Brooklyn, New York at The Marriott Hotel. Amazingly, I found out that for the next twenty-five years, as the baby boom generation matures joining the ranks of our Nation’s Senior Citizens, the numbers of elderly people in The [...]

By Cleo E. Brown Their names are Mathew Canussen, Seth Margolis, Digna Quinones, and Carlton Whitmore. They have each been diagnosed as disabled and unable to work. In today’s society, however, each now works in some capacity as a Peer Counselor, Specialist, and/or Supervisor. Each person’s story is a story of perseverance and personal triumph [...]

By  Deborah Honeycutt, MD The current news of the FBI and police searching for a Minnesota mom, Colleen Hauser, and her thirteen year old son, Daniel, who are refusing chemotherapy gives a lot of fodder for consideration. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is still the USA. We still have the right to [...]

By Star Ten years ago, you could turned on T.V. at anytime and you would hear a report on AIDS. Why now is the disease such a dirty word? Especially since it’s claiming so many lives in the black community. The character Lynn from the popular television show Girlfriends caught my attention on this issue. [...]

By Cleo Brown My brother Lance died in August of 2008. He was only forty-five years old. Although he was a Diabetic with a failing heart he did not have Health Insurance. The consequence of not having Health Insurance for Lance was that his basic need to remain healthy was not met. Eventually, therefore, after [...]

By Brandon Brice Policymakers, voters and our nation’s top experts have all argued that healthcare is the top issues in America second to only solving our countries unemployment crisis. Unfortunately, policymakers in Washington have once again missed the mark by not taking into full consideration that by granting healthcare to all, you forfeit the best [...]