“Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked”, says the Bible in the book of the Psalm 82:3-4.
Today that means protecting the poor against Republican efforts to deny healthcare to 40-50 million Americans who can’t otherwise afford it. That number mirrors closely, by the way the estimated 49.8 million Americans living in poverty -coincidence? I don’t think so. I also wonder if greedy insurance companies may be behind Republican insistence that these people be excluded and locked out of healthcare system in America?
On October 2nd, 2013 Rep. Earl Blumenauer asked for and was granted permission to address the United States House of Representatives for a few minutes regarding the Republican shutdown of government.
“Mr. Speaker, this is day two of the Republican shutdown, holding America hostage. The stated objective of their fury is what they feel to be the “unconstitutional” Affordable Care Act that will wreck the economy and destroy health care in America.”
“They harbor these feelings and will not relent until the law is defunded, even if it means shutting down the government, denying people essential services, furloughing Federal employees, and raising the specter of default on our national debt. This is despite the fact that the health care bill passed 3 years ago. It was declared constitutional by the United States Supreme Court and was argued extensively in the 2012 elections, which the Republicans lost”, he said.
“We’ve now seen the first day of the Affordable Care Act, already about 10 million visits to the Web site, phone lines jammed, hundreds of thousands of Americans–doctors, nurses, people in hospitals, insurance companies–involved in making the biggest advance in health care since Medicare 50 years ago. Are the Republicans afraid that the program will succeed, that Americans will see that this effort to help 40 to 50 million Americans with low income or people with preexisting conditions will actually get help?”, said Rep. Blumenauer (source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov).