The View From My Rocker

     "So, what do you think about Healthcare?" Henry said suddenly.
     We had been sitting quietly on the porch after breakfast. Henry didn't even look up from his newspaper to say 'hello' or 'good morning' when I came out to the porch. He'd just nodded when I sat down in the rocker next to him.
     Then out of the blue Henry threw this at me.
     I chuckled. "Without it I'd have been long dead. So, I'm all for it."
     He grinned. "No. I mean the Healthcare reform that's giving all of Congress terrible bouts of indigestion and making the Republicans speak as if their minds had been scrambled."
     "Truthfully," I said. "I don't see what all the fuss is about. We're supposed to be the greatest nation the world has ever seen. We have prided ourselves on our concern for the safety of one life. We've all heard the stories of battles waged and men dying to rescue one life, to protect one man.
     "Yet, with the most modern medical system in the world, we don't provide the same vigor and dedication to minimizing the suffering and prolonging the lives of our unfortunate and poor. Their lives don't seem to matter. Something morally wrong and un-American with that. I feel as a nation we should be ashamed."
     Henry nodded his approval. "Well, the fiscally responsible Republicans say it's too expensive. They've had their own tea party protests to emphasis this."
     I snickered at that. "The past two Republican administrations have tripled our national debt to almost 12 trillion dollars. They didn't appear so fiscally responsible then and they didn't seem to worry about who was going to pay for it. And what do we have to show for all that debt? With this we save lives, give respect to our own citizens, and we rekindle the value our country places on one human life."
     I was getting a bit hot under the collar. "And those tea party protesters were a joke. Were any of them without health insurance? Did any of them have placards that said, "We are the uninsured and we don't want healthcare reform?" Seems only those with health insurance are the ones against universal healthcare."
     Henry looked at me a little alarmed. Our roles are usually reversed. He's the one all upset and I'm the calm one.
     I smiled. "Sorry. Guess I'm a bit miffed at what's going on."
     Henry returned the smile. "I wouldn't have guessed."