Elizabeth Kramer | The Informer

“In May 2007, 140 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted to defund the Iraq war. In September, Congress voted to increase the debt limit. Imagine if Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats had threatened to breach the debt ceiling unless Republicans agreed to defund the war.”

This was a reader’s response to an article in The Washington Post. The reader also points out that in 2007, approval of the Iraq war was polled at 33 percent in favor and 64 percent against.

Currently, 38 percent of Americans are in favor of Obamacare while 52 percent are opposed to it, according to Harry J. Enten of The Guardian.

A higher approval rate and much lower opposition rate than that of the Iraq war, and yet the debate over Obamacare has caused a government shutdown while the Iraq war continued for four years after the motion to defund it.

There is a clear disparity between the public’s views and Congress’s actions, but there is also a distinct disparity between what we think we know and what we actually know. Enten shows through polling evidence over several years that more Americans oppose Obamacare than oppose the Affordable Care Act (ACA), even though they are just different names for the same thing.

In essence, many Americans support the provisions of the health care reform, but do not like that it is mandated of all people. Either that, or they don’t like it when Obama’s name is attached to it.

Enten proves that the majority of Americans approve of what the ACA would do: provide tax credits to small businesses to buy insurance, create insurance exchanges, give rebates to customers of insurance companies that spend too much on administrative costs and mandate employers to provide insurance for their employees.

But because only about 20 percent of Americans understand that this is what Obamacare would do, many more oppose the bill because of what they have heard from word of mouth. Three of the numerous rumors are that the ACA includes undocumented immigrant insurance, “death panels” and cuts to Medicare.

None of these are true.

And what is the number one complaint people have of the ACA? That it is mandatory.

Have we become so selfish and arrogant that we can’t stand the thought of letting the government control one aspect of our lives in order to better the lives of millions of people less fortunate than ourselves?

For goodness sake, this law helps people. It expands Medicaid because poor people need it. It increases Medicare tax because the Baby Boomers need it. It mandates employers and individuals to participate because employees and individuals need it.

We all need health care. This is a way to do it.

But no. Republicans can’t stand the idea of handing over the responsibilities of their precious corporations to the government. And they sure as hell can’t stand the idea of increasing taxes because, by golly, their millionaire buddies would have to cough up a few more of their precious Benjamin Franklins!

Or, they simply can’t fathom approving a reform bill proposed by a Democrat.

Now, I know Republicans aren’t the only ones “opposed” to Obamacare, and I certainly do not want to reinforce the extraordinary polarization apparent already in Washington D.C. What I’m saying is that most of the people who are opposed to bill, no matter what party they are in, are opposed to the ACA for the wrong reasons.

But we have to put things into perspective here. We are preventing millions of people from receiving their paychecks because the Republican majority in the House of Representatives does not want to fund health care reform.

And just as it is impossible to think of Obamacare without thinking of the accusations of it being a socialist scheme, in a couple of years it will be impossible to think of the government shutdown of 2013 without thinking of selfish Republicans causing further damage to the nation than the ACA probably ever would.