Debate over health care
JERSEY CITY, NJ – OCTOBER 03: Stephanie Lee (L), a counselor with The Metropolitan Family Health Network, encourages a woman who asked to remain nameless and is uninsured, to sign up for the Affordable Care Act. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Take the “Obama” out of Obamacare
We need to take Obama out of Obamacare. The new health-care initiative is actually called the Affordable Care Act (ACA). By placing President Obama’s name in the health-care program we personalize the new system to one person. And that connection to one person, who is being vilified by the tea party, makes it easy to dismiss the ACA as a socialist endeavor by a black man.
President Obama did not write the ACA law. He participated in its creation and signed it into law. But the ACA was created by Congress and passed by majority votes in the House and Senate, and withstood a Supreme Court challenge. It is the law of the land until Congress changes it.
We do not call Social Security as FDR Security. We don’t describe Medicare as JohnsonCare. By labeling the ACA with Obama’s name, we participate in a systemic attempt to discredit and personalize this law to a single individual — with the hope of circumventing the legislative process, because the Tea Party can’t succeed otherwise.
Dennis Day, Lake Forest Park
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