Obamacare Versus I Don't Care by Brent Abrahamson

In the blog, Obamacare Versus I Don't Care by Brent Abrahamson, he discusses one of our most leading political issues, healthcare.   The author himself gives no background information about himself or his political background, which makes me question how much he truly knows about this issue, but he is basing his current opinion off of a personal experience which shows that he has a firm example of where the government is failing in healthcare.  In the blog he claims that if you are to choose Republican in the elections you would be supporting a group of people that represent a government who doesn’t care about it’s citizens. While if you chose Democratic, or more specifically Obama, then you would be supporting a government that does support it’s citizens.  Abrahamson uses a first hand account of a run in at his pharmacy as an example of our current government and how it is failing.   Abrahamson describes when he was in line at the pharmacy and a young man was having problems getting his medication, after being told that he could not get it there the young man tried to ask where else he could go to get his medication and the pharmacist simply turned the him away.   After, the young man asked how much his medication would be if he paid for it himself and the clerk told him $900.  Abrahamson told the man what he could try to do and meanwhile found out that the medication was something vital to the young mans life.  I believe that this particular story is extremely helpful to Abrahamson’s opinion.  It brings out an emotional response from the reader by making you pity the young man and be angry towards our government for not being able to support someone for something they need to live.  I think one thing that Abrahamson fails to see is that Obama has been in office for a full term now, and since this was a recent experience, it obviously happened under Obama’s healthcare policy.  Meaning that the policy that Obama has enacted is not any different from the one that he describes the republicans having, which is that they should repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. If Obama was really any better than the Republican policy then why is this event occurring under his presidency? 

Church vs. State, Should It Be Re-Considered?

In this editorial by Jim Burkee, he discusses the revival of the issue based on the separation of church and state.  Candidate Rick Santorum is apparently an advocator for the “wall” between church and state to be removed and that the government should begin to intervene with religious affairs.  Santorum brought this debate back up when he discussed John F. Kennedy’s speech on the matter in which Kennedy supported the separation between church and state.  Santorum commented on this speech saying that it “makes me want to throw up” and that Kennedy “for the first time articulated the vision saying, ‘No. Faith is not allowed in the public square.’”  Burkee does not agree with Santorum in his views what so ever.   He says that Santorum had a “clear misreading of Kennedy’s statement” and that he “exposes a deeper misunderstanding by social conservatives of the exceptionalism of American church-state relations.”  I believe that Burkee is right in his disagreement with Santorum.  First off he poses an extremely legitimate claim.  Backing his argument with evidence and statistics to prove what Santorum has said was wrong.  My favorite is when he called Santorum on being “historically off by more than 150 years in his assertion that Kennedy was the first American president to advocate a wall between church and state.”  I find it interesting that the reporter on the matter knows more than the candidate who is giving speeches on the matter.  Burkee is obviously trying to reach out to his other fellow conservatives who agree with him on the matter as well as conservatives who may be leaning toward Sanotrum as a candidate to vote for.  His main argument that he poses is that religions do better when the state does not become involved in it’s affairs and he doesn’t understand why people, like himself, who are very religious and conservative, don’t understand that having the state interfere with their religious affairs will do more harm than good.    Burkee clearly knows his facts on this matter and has backed all his assertions and all of Santorums false assertions with substantial evidence, I think it makes a legitimate argument and whether you agree with him or not you should go look at the article for yourself at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-burkee-wall-between-church-and-state-20120229,0,315661.story