Several months ago, one of my friends uttered this quote in an attempt to combat the negative press surrounding President Obama’s health care bill as it was being considered by Congress. The answer to that question, of course, is that health care for everyone is not a bad thing, it is a great thing. Sadly my friend missed the point, and so did many Americans: How do you pay for it when we’re $13 trillion in debt? Health Care Reform gripped the nation as yet another non-partisan issue was politicized for the sole purpose of damaging political opponents. In the end there was no winner; only losers: The American People.

Every issue has an upside and a downside. In 1986, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act required hospital emergency rooms to treat anyone in need of care, regardless of citizenship, legal status, or ability to pay. The upside was that patients were not turned away from needed health care. The downside is that “about half of all emergency services go uncompensated.” The best intentions of government resulted in a huge unfunded mandate to emergency departments nationwide and a loss of $4.2 billion in revenue in 2001 according to the American Medical Association. Nobody wants to see patients denied much-needed care, but how can the government pass laws that help some people and completely destroy others?

There was much laughter following the presidents signing of the health care bill. Democrats were positively giddy over having successfully secured America’s decline. There were fist bumps and back slapping; the champagne flowed.

Democrats were not alone in their celebration. Republicans too shook hands with constituents and lapped up attention and praise for, let’s face it, having done very little. But, hey, why let that spoil a good time? My fear is that not only will Republicans not “repeal the bill” should they take control of congress after the mid-term elections, but that in the very near future Republican candidates will also be running on promises to nurture it. Such is my confidence in the current GOP.

Inasmuch as we are toasting the expansion of the administrative state (and thus the demise of our American Republic) we should perhaps also raise our glasses to Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. All these nations are on the verge of economic collapse due to their fiscal promiscuity. They too love their entitlements and are demanding them even as the ship of state sinks. Portugal is currently running a deficit that is 9.3% of GDP with a debt that is 80% of their GDP. Greece has a deficit of 13% and a debt of 113% of GDP. Just for laughs consider that they are appealing to the United States for financial aid. The U.S. currently carries a deficit that is over 12% and debt that is 94% of GDP.

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?

It’s a worthwhile reminder to the GOP that even though this particular health care reform deal might be dead, that doesn’t mean that health care reform should not take place. Like M. Scott, I fear that Brown’s victory might be misinterpeted as a way to just support the status quo.

That said, I’ve also been wondering if there is a reason that Republicans have not always been so passionate on health care reform as Democrats. I have a theory that one of the reasons Republicans have been active in trying to defeat health care is not simply because they are mean-spirited people as some on the left might think, but because they know there is nothing in it for them- no incentive to work for change. This is what Mark Thompson over at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen has to say about how the GOP views health care in response to fellow Leaguer Jamelle:

Whenever health care reform is talked about, Republicans respond in an almost Pavlov-style manner. Immediately we start talking about the evils of the Canadian and British healthcare systems and about the loss of American freedoms. Some even go a step further and claim as blogger John Vecchione writes in a recent post, that there is no health care crisis and when nations make universal health care a goal it also makes conservative parties unconservative.

Such claims amount to sticking one’s head in the sand and defending a system that really is undefendable.

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.