This morning I’m watching a segment on CBS Sunday Morning about health  care reform.  It’s something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to, but not enough research.   I’m not alone.  The very fact that access to health care is such a scary subject to almost everyone speaks to the need for reform.  When I worked at that big catalog company up in Freeport, I was aware that should my job go away I could fall back on Cobra.  Although pricey, it would assure available insurance.  Now that I work at a small company, I’m very aware that we fall below the minimum number of employees, and if my job should go away I would immediately be without insurance. That’s pretty scary for me even though I expect to keep my job.

Although I can be emotional (there is that Christmas coffee commercial about the son coming home unexpectedly -it  still makes me tear up), I also recognize that when too much emotion enters the picture, logical thinking quickly escapes out the back door.  I think insurance company execs and other special interests know this too well. An exceptional job has been done  in playing on the emotion of fear to quickly build walls of resistance to a reform that would affect their agendas.  I also think we can’t believe everything we hear on the other side.

This post is not about which side I back in this debate.  It’s about everyone learning enough facts and taking a step back to set aside emotion and do their own research before making a decision.  For this purpose, I would suggest a visit to FactCheck.org, an objective view that tries to provide an independant look at many subjects.

I don’t know how all this will turn out.  I do know I believe in the need for reform.  I don’t know for sure whether I will vote for Obama next time around.  I do know that I admire him for being brave enough to take this on.  Many politicians would fear more for their next election and temper their proposals with that agenda in mind.  Obama put out his wish list, is taking the heat, and is pushing for what he thinks is right.

Gloria Maher
Let’s all take a breath and do our decision making research.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 16th, 2009 at 9:55 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.