Laws are like sausages: if you like them, it’s best not to watch them being made. So let me attempt to explain to the handful of protesters railing against Sen. Mark Warner’s and 12 other Democrats’ vote against allowing Americans to purchase cheaper, Canadian-government-subsidized drugs what Senator Warner could not.
The so-called “Affordable Care Act” has proven not so affordable because Obama’s strategy for passing it involved letting the insurance and pharmaceutical companies and hospitals write the bills. So they wrote it so, for every dollop of welfare lower income folk got so they wouldn’t be “fined” for not having health insurance, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and hospitals would get three or four dollops of corporate welfare. Another part of the deal was continuing the ban on drug importation.
Senator Warner’s vote was faithful to the deal which gave rise to the “Affordable Care Act,” as we ought to expect of a senator whose 6-year term places him above the fray of day-to-day politics House members’ two-year terms force upon them.
Folks who want an “Affordable Care Act” which really is affordable need to make sure this one finds its way into history’s dustbin and await a more opportune political moment for real healthcare reform.
Dino Drudi
Alexandria