By Ryan Donahue ’10
SPECIAL TO THE ROUNDUP
Over the past year we as Americans have been engaged in a battle over the issue of whether giving healthcare to all people is appropriate.
Never before in my lifetime has our country been so vocal on their thoughts, opinions and ideas about one single piece of legislation.
I really wonder if our country didn’t have the stability we have would we be in a full on civil war between liberals and conservatives?
Our entire country of more than 300,000,000 people really lies in the hands of essentially 545 elected officials that make up the three branches of government.
That being said, these officials we elect are given the duty to create bills and send them through a rigorous process in order to become law.
Over the past year, the health care bill has been the most documented bill in media history and rightfully so.
However, people have begun to lose their sense of what is right and wrong in arguing over this bill. Instead people have begun to vote only with what their party of choice thinks and stopped thinking about what they believe about the issue.
Perhaps if we abolished our party lines and made everybody vote from their heart on issues instead of what others do, people would begin to find out who they really are.
It sounds ludicrous, but I firmly believe that so many of this country’s problems are the snowball result of people not being able to stand alone on what they think or go out on a limb.
I think we owe ourselves and others the duty of deciding issues individually, instead of groupings.
It’s crazy to think that as I write this column, people are arguing over the idea of giving everyone the right to healthcare and whether or not it is just. It’s ending up being so much more than that through the language of the bill, but the concept of helping out a brother in need has suddenly become a mudslinging topic.
When did giving the poor the right to life suddenly become a socialist ideal?
I believe we are all God’s children and as time has changed we have the responsibility to look out for one another, and for possibly the first time in modern history, we have the chance to look out for one another’s health and well being.
Yes, the bill is 2,000 pages long and has so many nooks and crannies that it is hard to determine what is even being said throughout it. But I believe if you stop for a second and realize the magnitude of giving the poor or those with preexisting conditions the right to life, then maybe you might think twice about this bill.
Even if then you still don’t agree, then think about how much the president has made you think throughout this whole process.
Whether you agree with the bill or not, never has there been something that all of America debated so compassionately about.
