I am so damned angry today. The Republicans just voted to harm millions of people. Raised taxes on the lowest income people. Drastically cut taxes for the wealthiest. Cut Medicaid and Medicare, which will cause major harm to our health care system, which is already in sad shape. I am angry at anyone who is in support of this evil agenda. I am perhaps more angry at those who might care about others in their private lives, but too apathetic or lazy to even follow the kind of pain that is being inflicted on anyone who isn’t wealthy by this administration and it’s elected collborators.
I am tired of being angry. Anger is a healthy emotion because it is our mind, body, and soul’s way of letting us know someone is violating our values. The more anger we sense, the more violation we sense is going on. Usually, with people, I acknowledge anger and ask myself if I am in a situation where it is appropriate to attempt to impose my values on another. The answer is almost always no. Not in this case. I was raised to “love my neighbor as myself’. Republicans and their supporters are violating that value, and even those too lazy to vote in a way I have not seen before in my lifetime.
I play music in Assisted Living, Long-Term Nursing Care, and Memory Care for Seniors in my area. The other day, I walked into a long-term care facility to see a distraught lady in a wheelchair crying and talking about her situation. She said if they cut her Medicaid, she would die. Furthermore, given her medical issues, she would die painfully, homeless and alone. She has no surviving family. The front desk people could not console her because she was right.
I sometimes play five times a week in these facilities, and our area Seniors who are dependent on Medicaid or who might become dependent on Medicaid are afraid for their lives and their friends’ lives. Donald Trump and Republicans, with fierce opposition from many Democrats, have created this fear.
I also worked in child welfare and foster care. I was a foster parent at one point. Cutting Medicaid cuts health care for foster children. It is their only source of insurance. So children in foster care with, say, cancer will have no source of payment for their care. Of course, this administration stopped research on childhood cancer, too.
Medicaid is also used to help adoptive parents pay for the care of adoptive children and for children who have aged out of the Foster Care System and are on their own. The best adoptive parents are and have always been, working-class people. Medicaid has made adoption affordable. This law will lead to a reduction in adoptions without significant action at the state level. Blue states will probably step up, but red states won’t.
I was also raised in a family with kindness and Christian values. One of the statements that has stuck with me recently is, “You will recognize them by their fruits.” For Christians who either supported Trump and the other politicians who are doing this or who believe they don’t need to vote for responsible policy for children, the poor, and the elderly, the things I am describing here are your fruits. I know you by the pain your misguided activity or apathy is causing.
I am not a big fan of shame. The purpose of shame is to let us know we have violated universal values. For those who are responsible for this, I ask. Are you ashamed yet?