The healthcare debate lives on through bloggers

I recently started reading a blog by a man named Mario Piperni, who I originally found through another blog that was recommended by the nytimes. He's quite good, and he updates several times a day on different topics. He's leans a little to the left (like most bloggers) but he seems to have an even-temper in regards to political issues. Anyways, enough of a plug.

He recently wrote this post on the healthcare debate, and how a desire for what should be considered a human right has been turned into a highly politicized debate. He gets to the heart of the argument when he writes:

Tens of millions have no health insurance. Tens of millions of others have lost their insurance because they lost their jobs in the time of recession. The cost of health care in the United States is one of the highest in the world. I could go on here but you know the rest, I’m sure.

How is this acceptable to anyone regardless of their political persuasion? This is the point. As much as conservatives want to make this an issue of bigger government, it is not. It is about fiscal responsibility and respect and dignity for your fellow Americans.

He's right. Before all the chaos started in congress, before rational and ethical debates turned into mud-slinging and personalized attacks, and long before anyone began to discuss the merits of a public option, there was this: Healthcare is broken, it's not working for the citizens, and it needs to be fixed.

Piperni is correct here in asserting that reform had a higher calling than that of partisan arguments. Holding and valuing human life as equal to your own was the matter at stake. It was high time America stepped away from its narrow-view of promoting laissez-faire economics through all walks of life, and started caring about their fellow citizens. This wasn't about socialism/communism, or big government trying to expand its powers. It's about human rights.