Tenney, GOP failed on healthcare

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” Thomas Jefferson

Recently, Republican controlled Washington created a long-awaited replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act, something that they had desired to do since its inception in 2010. As we know, they failed to repeal ACA and developed legislation that would not cover healthcare for a great proportion of the American people. In fact, it would have resulted in a huge tax cut for the wealthy and major concessions to insurance companies enabling them to eliminate coverage for breast and prostate cancer screening, emergency room visits, maternity care, and other essential services that make up basic healthcare available through the ACA.

Organizations representing the community of professionals that provide care of all of us — the American Medical Association, professional nursing groups, hospital associations, the AARP, American Association of Pediatric Medicine — all spoke out strongly against this substitute bill. Yet, the Republicans, including Rep. Claudia Tenney, believed they knew better how to manage our healthcare. Rep. Tenney, one of the Freedom Caucus supporters, selfishly negotiated a questionable reprieve on Medicaid spending for upstate New York counties without any regard for how the Republican replacement bill would negatively impact so many elderly, disabled and poor Americans everywhere. The Republican party, which includes ultraconservatives like Rep. Tenney, seems unable to remember or to affirm what Thomas Jefferson said, “the object of good government is to first take care of human life” which involves, in this instance, the creation of a viable and productive healthcare policy; one that reforms the ACA not replaces it with something much, much worse. Rep. Tenney and her Republican colleagues to ignored the American people and ignored professional healthcare providers in the creation of their healthcare plan. Such is the cautionary tale of their flawed style of governance. They do not represent good, healthy governance: the building of consensus and input from those who know much more about how to “…care for human life and happiness.” Instead, they exemplify what makes government…sick!

Maria T. Erdo, Sherrill