Published: April 1, 2010

At various times throughout American history, there have been intense controversies that have stimulated the passions of U.S. citizens, and have caused us to actively voice our opinions. While we generally tend to expect the upstart of protests and rallies when engaged in war or scandal, political policy is something that up until recently was only a unanimous subject of intense debate around election time. All of that has changed dramatically with the presidency of Barack Obama, particularly in reference to health care reform.

During the president’s fight to get the health care reform bill passed, and it was a fight indeed, there have been debates all over the country as to whether or not the bill will help or hurt Americans. Being avidly dedicated to his promise of health care reform, Obama  revised the bill several times in attempts to appeal to the naysayers, but it is with the constant revisions of the bill and the ever-changing focuses of the numerous debates that one thing has become clear; few people really even understand what this bill entails. With the passing of this very difficult piece of legislation and so many passions tied up in it, I’m curious and a little afraid of what health care reform really means for our country.

I am not saying that I’m afraid of the actual changes to the health care industry that will come about from the bill, for I believe that those are all necessary and beneficial to the American people, but what I am afraid of is what happens when passions rooted in ignorance are ignited, and that goes for people on both sides of the debate.

As seen throughout multiple news media, protests sprang up all over the country, seemingly from the very moment the bill was passed, people gathered in crowds with signs and chanted different things, all to supposedly show their disapproval of the passing of health care reform. But what is interesting to note about a lot of these protests is how so many citizens inject their chants with racial slurs and decorate their signs with personal attacks against the president. If I had been living under a rock for the past year and suddenly came out and stood outside of one of these protests, I wonder how long it would take for me to figure out that the protest was against health care. Furthermore, I wonder if anyone partaking in one of those protests could effectively explain the health care bill to me and what exactly they were upset about. Conversely, I wonder how many supporters of the bill would have still voted for it had the exact same bill been proposed by George W. Bush as opposed to Barack Obama.

All the details of the bill are still fuzzy to most Americans, but opinions about it are so deeply rooted. One thing that becomes apparent is that the roots of this debate are strongly planted in partisanship. The health care reform bill passed without a single Republican vote, a fact that demonstrates how much this debate actually has to do with healthcare and how much it has to do with politics. Not that it isn’t possible for all Republicans to agree on the issue, but the fact that not one Republican saw benefit in the bill or thought that the value of the reform outweighed his or her political affiliations, is very telling of the intensity of the debate. Even more telling is the fact that the bill has already been amended twice in the past five days since its signing. Obama stated how he had not been the first president to set out to tackle the issue of health care in America, but he vowed to be the last.

As serious as the issue of health care reform is, it’s scary to think that we as American citizens can be so tied up in our passions against one another that we overlook what it is that we should be paying attention to. Taking a step into becoming a country that ensures universal health care for its citizens is now a large part of what will become American history, and the best thing for us all to do is to put aside our prior convictions and reason objectively. It is the only way to ensure that the steps we take, are one that will lead us in the right direction.