Tammy Swofford
Every month I submit a payment to my private insurance carrier. It covers monthly healthcare costs. This payment is an economic discipline deployed across a lifetime. My family consumes most meals at home. We choose non-designer clothing and prudently consider our household purchases. Our economic discipline allows us to live in a mid-century home on a tree-lined street with a pond and park at the end of the block. Life is carefully planned around our finances. 
President Obama assures us that “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” is good for Americans. Many Americans loathe this federal mandate. We remain firmly opposed to what the Democrats have forced upon us. I am one of those Americans. What I write today is an opinion piece which is an echo chamber. Listen to the conversation. This is the topic of interest around the tables of ordinary Americans. Pull up a chair, please join us and accept the gift of our hospitality. But most of all, experience our palpable fear.
For middle-class taxpayers, Obamacare is based on voodoo economics. This voodoo sticks a pin right into the backs of working-class citizens. We suffer from excessive taxation with misrepresentation. We are weary of a burgeoning and federally applauded entitlement class. The slow hemorrhage of our lifeblood into the hands of men who did not toil for the bread on our tables continues. Our homemade bread is a puff pastry for bad policy. Hence, our yearning for a spot of tea…. 
Voodoo is actively practiced in Haiti. I mention this because my grandfather served as a Christian dental missionary in that nation. He was aware of the many rituals playing out around him. The roots of vodoo extend from the soil of West Africa. The Ewe immediately comes to mind as a group which has moorings in voodoo magic. Essentially, voodoo involves manipulation and/or sacrifice of the one for the benefit and/or detriment of another life. Obamacare is a policy slaughterhouse against middle-class Americans.
It was Herbert Hoover who promised Americans “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage”. These were bold times. Campaign slogans attested to the growing prosperity of the American people.
Obamacare slaughters the chicken and gives it to someone else.
My son and I went to see the film “Elysium”. It is a propaganda film in favor of universal healthcare. Whilst trying to knock some sense into my child’s head regarding the double story he stated, “Mom, healing should not cost anything.” While noting the ethical tone of our conversation it seemed important that he understand that Obamacare presents us with a greater ethical dilemma. All flawed policies produce greater economic distress. Plundering the middle class to give to the poor is as mythical as Robin Hood. At least Robin Hood only plundered the rich.
My son finally understood my concern when I told him that while healing should not bear a cost, modern healthcare is not cheap. Every activity bears a cost. I am a registered nurse. I can work for free. But we will look at an empty pantry. Starvation is also unethical. The point was further driven home when I pointed out the man peddling his bicycle. If my son believes that all men should own a car, he should give his Jeep to the man propelling himself along on two wheels. Is it a compassionate thought? Yes. Is it economically feasible? Nope. My son needs his vehicle for the commute to work. Policy with the appearance of ethical concern but lacking economic feasibility is voodoo.
America is a land of promise based on a Constitution with a succinct bill of rights. But the spirit of the law is clear. Each man has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But each man is accountable for his life. He is accountable, in at least some small measure, to do his part to live the American dream. He is a steward not only of his own life but the life of his future generations. Poverty can be seasonal in America. But poverty is never meant to be generational. Entitlement programs which continue in generational manner strip men of their motivation. Obamacare deconstructs the spirit and the intent of Constitutional law. It is a passive form of slavery against the middle class. 
America has a class of generationally poor who choose dependency on the federal tit for almost everything but the air they breathe. They buy their wants and beg their needs. The poor can afford colorized tattoos, salon manicures and the latest cell phone. There is little thought for working within the confines of a disciplined budget. My hairdresser comes to mind. She spent three thousand dollars for her small daughter’s birthday party. But in the next breath she told me she had taken her daughter to an area children’s hospital to treat a fever. “I can’t afford insurance.”
Obamacare will shrink the middle class as more chickens are slaughtered and pins stuck into the backs of working class Americans. We are dependent on our jobs to sustain our families. Corporations are lining up like two lines of falling dominoes. One corporate line glumly announces they will decrease their full-time work force by morphing into part-time labor pools that do not fall under the mandate. The second corporate line gleefully announces it is cheaper to pay a fine than to provide coverage for their workforce. My socioeconomic bracket is hurtling downward.
My ancestors blazed trails through forests, cleared the land and shouldered wooden plows. American women harvested the fields, lugged water in wooden buckets and birthed their progeny by the light of lanterns. Smudge-faced children worked alongside their parents. Americans worked, sweated and toiled for the Constitutional promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is no Constitutional guarantee for healthcare.
Obamacare slaughters my chicken for the man who did not work for it. The POTUS is manipulating a voodoo doll. I feel the pinprick in my back.
The writer is a freelance journalist and author of the novel Arsenal. She can be reached at tammyswof@msn.com
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