THE AMERICAN HEALTH CARE REFORM DEBATE GETS SERIOUS.........

The first thing President Obama said in his Address to a Joint Session of Congress Wednesday night, is very true - our National, Health Care Reform, initiative began nearly a century ago when President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, proposed a National Health Care program for the United States, as the Progressive Party candidate for President in 1912. And yet for 97 years, the special interests, status quo, and bought politicians, have thwarted it, leaving our country as the only major industrial country in the world and the wealthiest and most affluent, not to provide health care as a right for all our citizens. It is a scandal that tens of millions of our Americans cannot afford, or go without guaranteed health care and suffer disease and illness inordinately and often times, unnecessarily. Common sense and Compassion for the dignity of the human person, not their sole ability to pay or their bank account, should be the rule of thumb for providing quality health care for all our nearly 300 million American citizens. Since 1933, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and William Clinton, have attempted to get the Congress to pass a national health care reform. The recently deceased Senator Edward Kennedy made it what he called, "The cause of his life", to get it enacted. But until now, the lobbies swaying the Congress and expending millions of dollars in campaign cash to buy their opposition, and potent opponents until now, like the American Medical Association and the Insurance companies, reaping obscene profits in the face of necessary reform, have effectively blocked passage of a health care reform program. As the President proclaimed last week in his Address,..."the time for bickering, (talking the issue into the ground, and partisan politics) is over. The time for ACTION ( and legislative enactment) is NOW". Why we need to wait one more year for significant and vitally necessary reform boggles the mind. Let us Pray that the Congress and the Nation, will heed the support of Catholic-Christian leadership in our country, led by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and support finding the ways and means to equitably make provision for the vulnerable members of the United States of America, where no American is left uncovered or suspectible to health problems that preventive and assured care will help them effectively address.........Fr. Troy David Powers