Health-Care Controversy Dividing America
Demonstrators for and against President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul protested outside the U.S. Supreme Court on March 26 as justices prepared to hear arguments over America’s historic health-care expansion. The law was passed a year ago and is slated to take effect in 2014.
Arguments during the three-day hearing are focusing on a provision of the law that requires every American to either purchase insurance or pay a fine. Almost all Americans will be affected by the final decision, and the debate has sparked intense emotion among both supporters and opponents.
Impassioned supporters say Americans have a right to government-funded health care regardless of their income.
At the rally, political activist Mark Kramer explained the supporters’ stance, saying, “We are a rich and prosperous nation. It is only morally right that a minimal level of health care should be a right and not a function of income for which job you have.”
On the other side of the divide, equally fervent opponents insist that government-enforced health care is not a right. Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum explained his contrasting view, saying, “Rights come from our Creator, they are protected by the Constitution of this country. Rights should not and cannot be created by a government.”
The polarizing argument has become a key issue in the 2012 presidential campaign, and reflects the widening divide between Americans. This election year, Americans are even more divided, and tempers are flaring even hotter.
In his 1859 “House Divided” speech, Abraham Lincoln alluded to a statement made by Jesus Christ: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” Lincoln understood that deep, continuing political division ends in ruin. A close look at modern America’s health-care debate, race relations, financial disagreement and ideological differences reveals a divide deeper than perhaps at any time since the Civil War.
