FLAIT

Last October I wrote this Letter to the Editor but decided not to send it in because it would have been heavily edited. I wasn't going to post it to the blog so I deleted it; or so I thought because I couldn't find it days later when I changed my mind and wanted to post it. But after all these months, thinking it was gone forever, I found it. So here it is, with some minor changes.

Jonathan Bernstein's October 12 column, "Health-care law still can’t shake Obamacare label," struck a nerve with me when he said "27 percent (of Americans) said (Obamacare) hurt them." This is why Obamacare hasn't been well received. But I don't know why since it has stabilized insurance costs, reduced the deficit, allowed children to remain on their parent's policies through age 27, banned pre-existing condition discrimination, removed insurance company spending caps, and instituted mandatory spending minimums on actual health care. Also, more Americans are getting the care they need now that they have insurance, and fewer uninsured are turning up at emergency rooms for tax-payer funded care. Who could possibly have a problem with that? So Obamacare has a number of benefits, even for those who get their insurance through their employer and not through the healthcare.gov web site. But that's not even the point.

The fact that any American would disapprove of the new health care law because they've been "hurt" by it shows just how selfish many of us are. Because this notion that a law is bad and must be repealed because you've been "hurt" by it (when you really haven't), but benefits the entire country, is the definition of selfishness. We may not all be in the same boat all the time, but we are in the same lake.

If the privileged are hit with higher taxes on their "Cadillac" health care plans to pay for Obamacare, so be it; if higher taxes are necessary to pay for our endless wars and to rebuild after natural disasters, so be it; if gas taxes have to be raised nationally and at the state level to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, invest in alternative energy, lower mass transit fares and modernize our city's airports and decrepit mass transit systems, so be it; if Wall Street bankers have to adhere to government regulations to prevent another economic collapse, so be it; if a Congressman has to oppose a weapons system that would be built in his district or state because it's not needed or wanted, so be it; if he has to oppose coal mining or oil drilling (on shore or off) in his district or state because they're dangerous, pollute the environment and not in the country's long term energy interests, so be it; if he has to oppose fracking in his district or state because it causes earthquakes, makes well water and tap water flammable, and dumps toxic chemicals into our rivers and groundwater, so be it; and if every gun buyer has to go through background checks and are prohibited from purchasing AK-47's so their fellow citizens in other parts of the country can be a bit safer, so be it.

We'll never solve our country's problems until we start becoming more selfless. But in one of his 2012 campaign ads, even President Obama was looking for votes from the selfish when he said, "Vote for the candidate that's best for you."

No Mr. President, I'm not voting for the candidate that's best for me. I'm voting for the candidate that's best for the country. At least I'd like to.

I keep hearing that our troops, America's most selfless no doubt, are fighting for "American values." I didn't know that selfishness was one of them.