LETTER: How can anyone be against a right to health care?

What can possibly be a logical argument against a nation’s people all having the right to affordable and available health care?  

President Obama’s team achieved passing the Affordable Care Act into law. U.S. administrations have been trying to do this ever since I was born, back in the 1930s. This was the first positive step in moving our health-care system from a “privilege” to a “right.” Obama achieved passage of the ACA because he realized it would never pass without compromise and accepting features that would later need revision and correction. And the ACA law has now changed the entire direction of health care in America, regardless of present political based rhetoric. This is a fact. Just listen carefully to the suggestions for change.  

Paul Krugman, professor of economics and columnist at the New York Times, recently wrote: “One of the remarkable aspects of the politics of health-care reform in America is the way that conservatives — even relatively mild, seemingly informed conservatives — have managed to keep believing that the Affordable Care Act is unraveling, despite the repeated failure of disaster predictions to come true.”

He goes on to say: “Part of the way it works is that when it comes to Obamacare, the captive media and the right’s pet ‘experts’ hype every bit of bad news about the law, but go silent when the news is good (and often when the bad news turns out to be a false alarm).”

We all know how easy and enticing it is to fall prey to what is said with passion and bluster designed to stimulate our emotions of fear and anger. However, like Ben Carson and John Kasich, I choose to have trust in the phrase, “There is a better way,” and then get on with our collective lives in working together on the direction and details in achieving that “better way.” —Bob McClellan, Polson