Let's Play Scare the Old Folk! Or, healthcare insurance reform in our times.

I am not at all surprised that people are willing to scare the old and infirm amongst us in order to gain, or keep, power and money. Isn't is sad to say that? Shouldn't I be surprised? Shouldn't I be shocked? Yes. This should be something so abnormal, so rare, that it would blindside me. It doesn't. Not in the slightest.

What have we come to that people in power and have enough money to be wealthy beyond what most Americans could even dream to make in a lifetime, deem it necessary to instill a deep, nightmarish fear into the citizens that are amongst our most vulnerable and frail? What are we as a nation, that so many think it's their right, that it is even fun?

To tell people the reform that would actually make their lives easier, give them better access to care, and not mean certain bankruptcy, that the government wants to take awwy healthcare or even kill them is obscene. To make up horror stories and fabricate wild scenarios about what reform would do is unconscionable.

Too many of our country's elderly are already living in poverty or very close to it. They survive on social security and maybe, if lucky, a retirement benefit after a lifetime's hard work. Increases are minimal while costs of living soar. They get healthcare now through Medicare, which doesn't pay everything. So, when the cost of going to the doctor or buying prescriptions, goes up, they have to find that money from somewhere in a budget that grows much slower than the cost of living.

I'm not even talking about the undereducated, the working poor and the younger disabled. Then there are the self employed or small business owners.

To use the subject of healthcare as weapon is so low, so cowardly, and quite possibly murderous.

The people behind it seem to fall into five categories -

1 Those that want power. These are mostly the politicians and their puppetmasters.

2 Those that want money. These are the insurance moguls and the politicians in their pockets.

3 Those that just want to make trouble. There are always people who will join a fight and hope for blood. They don't care who gets hurt or even what the fight is about. They just want to destroy something. It makes them feel powerful in the very small sense of bullying.

4 Those that hate. Let's face it. We have a black president. This nation is still full of racism. Some of the hate is fueled by fear of change, fear of moving forward, fear of having to admit to lifetimes of being wrong about those that are different.

5 Those that fit two or more of the definitions above.

These groups of people are involved in our lives in one way or another. It's just in this instance, in this "debate" they are targeting a defenseless population. And, they don't care what damage they do as long as they get what they want. They don't care that these elderly could be their own mothers or fathers or grandparents. They just don't care.

The lust for power, the greed and the hate are so strong, any compassion and sense of what is good and right disappears. It no longer exists. How can it? Those feelings are mirrors that show the soul.

I am deeply, deeply saddened, but I'm not surprised.