ObamaCare: Good Foreign Policy - 4

A Heart Grown Cold

Background

In this series I have been looking at aspects of the inexplicable word storms crossing America from left to right and from right to left.

While, as usual, the world is watching.

That is why I used the word "inexplicable."

Some of our conversations and deeds perplex the humane minds of the world because those conversations exhibit the crass, careless, brazen, and psychopathic aspects of a culture that cares nothing about anything else except their own exceptionalism.

Even though:

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."

(Martin Luther King Jr.). As Senator Bernie Sanders points out:

“The Affordable Care Act has made modest improvements in American health care since it took effect. Twenty million Americans have gained insurance under the law, including young people who can stay on their parents' policies and others who may no longer be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions. The law also has expanded access to primary care to some 4 million more Americans through community health centers that also provide dental care, low-cost prescription drugs and mental health counseling.

“But the United States remains, shamefully, the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee health care to all its people as a right. And because of the profiteering of the pharmaceutical industry and private insurance companies, the United States spends almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation, while our life expectancy, infant mortality and preventable deaths are higher than most other countries. If our goal is to provide high-quality health care for all Americans in a cost-effective way, we must move toward a single-payer system.

“The health insurance lobby and other opponents of single-payer care make it sound scary. It's not. In fact, a large, single-payer system already exists in the United States: It's called Medicare. People enrolled in the system give it high marks. More importantly, it has succeeded in providing near-universal coverage to Americans over age 65.

(Medicare for All). What Dr. King and Senator Sanders are expressing is their hurt due to U.S. policy that is:

"A disregard for human suffering in the pursuit of profit."

(David Puttnam). This is the core lack of values that is at the heart of the demise of American reputation (Decline of U.S. Reputation - Why?).

Supreme Court Decision In King v. Burwell

Yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell was the talk of the town, but so much of that talk was more evidence of the dumbing down of the U.S. public.

It was a simple case of statutory construction, that is, the strange way of saying one government branch interpreting a statute written by another branch of government must do so with intellectual honesty and respect:

It is ... the Court’s task to determine the correct reading of Section 36B. If the statutory language is plain, the Court must enforce it according to its terms. But often times the meaning—or ambiguity—of certain words or phrases may only become evident when placed in context. So when deciding whether the language is plain, the Court must read the words “in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.”

When read in context, the phrase “an Exchange established by the State under [42 U. S. C. §18031]” is properly viewed as ambiguous. The phrase may be limited in its reach to State Exchanges. But it could also refer to all Exchanges—both State and Federal—for purposes of the tax credits. If a State chooses not to follow the directive in Section 18031 to establish an Exchange, the Act tells the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish “such Exchange.” §18041. And by using the words “such Exchange,” the Act indicates that State and Federal Exchanges should be the same.
...
The Court ... must do its best, “bearing in mind the ‘fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the over all statutory scheme.’”

(King v Burwell, 576 U.S. ___ , 2015, emphasis added). The inability to read in context is a problem of reading comprehension.

Good reading comprehension is composed of being able to comprehend the totality of a text and the proper impact which subtextual components should have.

The rabid myopia which engendered the notion that Congress' use of those four words should mandate the destruction of the health care of thousands or millions of Americans is shameful and violent.

Blowhard Presidential Candidates

One has to wonder about how much the American reputation has suffered in the eyes of the world since psychopaths have chosen to make their way into public life (When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 2).

Country after country has called in the U.S. Ambassador for an explanation as to why a "freedom loving" country has to disrespect its own citizens as well as the citizens and governments of "its friends" by spying on them.

Oh, I get it, "the constitution is so quaint" in the U.S.eh?

Conclusion

Today the murdered are being honored in Charleston even as others debate whether the flag of the hatemongering and warmongering racists of long ago should be honored by flying their battle flag today (Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 10).

The previous post in this series is here.

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Senator Sanders:

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