The health care argument makes me ill.

Today the Dallas Morning News reported that one in four Texans do NOT have health insurance. And even closer to home, in Dallas County, one in three do NOT. They also reported that the Republican governor, Rick (I’m wanna be the big cheese President) Perry and the GOP stuffed legislature have done nothing to implement the new standards from the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) for Texans. In fact, they have stood in the way of it being implemented in the Lone Star State.

We also have learned that several major health insurance companies are saying they will stay with the new standards even if the less than Supreme Court rules it to be unconstitutional. That is because these insurance companies can see that it is (a) profitable and (b) working for their customers in providing easy access to a wide-field of medical options.

That being said, I don’t want to here the “socialist” moniker placed on this program any more. It is a capitalistic approach to providing decent coverage for every American…but only if the mandate stays in place. (A Republican idea, by the way.)

Here’s why the act is constitutional. Government, state or federal (even local for that matter) can require citizens to do certain things. You want to leave and then re-enter the country, you must obtain and have on your person a valid passport.  You want to dive a car. Get insurance. It is mandatory. Put on a seatbelt. Again mandatory – and backed by federal law, else states not enforcing it lose federal highway funds. In Dallas, you want to ride a bike on public streets and sidewalks, got to have a helmet. So all this hoop-la about the mandate is a bit specious. Want to be a citizen and have an income, got to pay taxes. Want health care? You have to be enrolled in a health care coverage plan. Very simple. Didn’t take any of your freedoms away, but it did give you coverage. So why all the nashing of teeth and fear we are becoming the next soviet Union? It is because the Republicans can work up their base with less-than-truth’s like these.

What Obamacare does, is insure that the one out of three folks in Dallas County…or the one out of four in Texas will have access to universal coverage. It removes a huge burden from country tax payers in treating indigent patients at our hospitals.

Now if we could get our dim-witted governor to act on this, we’d move the state a step closer to getting into the 21^st century. We could streamline our health care mess and actually lower costs. (Image that!)

As for the less than Supreme Court, they had better get this one right– they had better ignore the huge money they get from conservative groups for speaking and voting the way they have…and this time, put Americans first. (I doubt they will. There is too much riding on this for them to do the right thing.)

It is time we recognize that the extreme right doesn’t want universal coverage, not because they are against the idea. They are just against it coming from this President at this time. Let Romney get elected and re-introduce it as he did in Massachusetts and it will fly through like a hot knife in butter. And the GOP will take credit for it as fast as the cowboys disappear in the post season every year.

And this is exactly why American is in such trouble today. (The rancor…not the Cowboys.)

By the way, my daughter was one of those not covered by insurance until Obamacare came along. She didn’t have a job, was graduated from college, with pre-existing needs. But with this national mandate, she got insurance and can live a life without fear of getting ill.

Now GOP friends, you take that away from her and who do you think she is going to vote for the rest of her life?  It ain’t going to be the big fat elephant…that’s for sure.