What Is Wrong With The Republican Agenda?

By Elizabeth Dede

A reprint from February 2006

George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” is a lie, just as every single word that comes out of his mouth. The Republicans, both in Washington, DC, and in Atlanta, hate the poor, the elderly, and the African American. As I was thinking about this column, I went online to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary site to look up the work “compassion.” Here’s the definition: “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”

I will use only two current examples from Washington, DC, and Atlanta, to illustrate the lack of compassion in the Bush and Perdue administrations. Both have to do with how we treat the poor and the elderly, and in many cases, disenfranchised African Americans.

In September, 2005, I had the honor and pleasure of spending a week with my father-in-law in Savannah. He is a 79-year-old, World War II disabled veteran. One of the reasons I went was to help him make sense of the new Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Plan.

With the exception of the time that he served during World War II, my father-in-law worked all of his life on the railroad. He had a very good health care plan with the company, which included a prescription drug plan. With the US Government’s new Medicare Plan, his old plan was eliminated, and under the government’s plan he would have to pay much more for his medications. One thing we decided immediately was to check him into the local VA Clinic so that he could take advantage of the VA assistance that he was entitled to.

I began to read through the pages of information that had been sent both by the US Government and by his old insurance company. Everything was very confusing. But one thing was clear, if my father-in-law didn’t make up his mind in time, he would be substantially penalized. In addition, he was in a no-win situation, because no provider was going to offer all his medications.

At the end of my week with him, even though I am very literate, I remained quite confused. I promised that I would continue to do research and remain in touch with him. When I got back home, I went online to the VA site, and learned that veterans are not penalized if they do not choose a plan by the deadline because the VA drug coverage is considered adequate, so at least my father-in-law is safe that way.

But I thought of all the elderly, confused, poor, illiterate, folk who have no one to help them through the confusion. This is not compassion. No one in Washington seems to have any awareness of the distress of the elderly, or any desire to alleviate it.

Here in Georgia, when the new Medicare plan was implemented in January 2006, total confusion reigned at the pharmacies. Drugs that were supposed to be covered by Medicare weren’t, and Governor Perdue refused to allow the State of Georgia to temporarily pay for the drugs for the elderly until the US Government could work out the confusion. Hundreds of thousands of sick, elderly people went without life-sustaining medications. In other states, the same confusion happened, but governors there were willing to foot the bill until they could be reimbursed by the federal system. Where is Perdue’s compassion?

Governor Perdue and the Republicans in Atlanta focused instead on fixing the racist Voter ID bill. They passed a version this year which will provide free state-issued IDs to every registered voter. And the state will provide the equipment to every county in the state that is needed to produce these free state-issued IDs. It is estimated that this equipment will cost $6,000.00 per county. Georgia has 159 counties. That means the state will spend $954,000 on this useless bill. We know that the real voter fraud occurs in absentee balloting where no ID is required. Why couldn’t this money be sent to provide health care for the poor? That would be compassionate.

Those are just a couple of things that are wrong with the Republican Agenda. It would be very easy to fix it. Provide single-payer medical insurance for all people. Rescind the Racist Voter ID Law. End the war in Iraq. Close the Pentagon.