Fixing problems
If firing a staff member to fix a problem does not solve the problem, this must at least raise the possibility that the fired person was not the problem. Then what was? More specifically, who was?
One should emphasize that we are in no way pointing fingers here. All we are doing is asking a few simple questions. What we’d like are a few simple answers.
We are all interested in having problems solved.
To start with, whom should we ask, and what should we ask? Members of Congress say they have no idea whom to ask about specific policies. If members of Congress do not know whom to ask, who does? Is there some other, more important group that none of us know about? I’m confused by this. Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s confused by it.
What we need is a government that works. Something that runs in accordance with rules that everyone understands, and that everyone complies with.
Do we have that now?
If not, why not?
Changing health care
When Susan Collins was asked if she thought it was necessary for both parties to work together, she said, “That’s what we should have done from the very beginning.”
Three cheers for Maine and its senator, who knows about using common sense. For those who apparently don’t know what that is – and there are many – common sense is that sense without which all other sense is nonsense.
It is no exaggeration at all to say that when we talk about changing the health care system, we are dealing with a question of life or death. Ask anyone now in dire need of Medicaid who would be unable to afford some new, increased fees for it.
Normally, when one thinks of the term “life or death,” one automatically thinks in terms of one person who might live or die because of some event. In this case, that is not what’s involved. Those doing the debating about whether or not the Medicaid fees would be increased are talking about, in one case, some 23 million people who would be affected, or in the other case, maybe “only” 22 million. And this in the richest country in the world.
These millions are those who would be unable to afford the needed care.
Let me state that for you in plain English.
Those are the millions who would die.
Let’s not work forever at fighting back and forth with each other about who’s responsible when it happens. We are all responsible, America.
Just fix it.
REGUT
(Robert E. Regut is a graduate of West Point and a teacher with 20-plus years of experience in the teaching of foreign languages, specializing in the teaching of spoken German. He can be reached at P.O. Box 101, Nobleboro, ME, or at robertregut@gmail.com.)
