Sorry, face. This nose has GOT to go…

Tea party types in Michigan, facing the stinging blow of the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the constitution, are now working on a self-defeating effort to make sure that Michigan doesn’t create a health insurance exchange for Michiganders to shop for affordable health insurance. This comical effort apparently disregards the fact that, if they are successful, the federal government will create one FOR us, limiting our state legislators’ ability to have any say or control in the matter.

This is from an email I received yesterday from the Tea Party of West Michigan (all typos and grammatical errors are theirs, not mine – like the grammatically incorrect tagline at the top of every page on their website: “Influence policy, effect elections, protect the Constitution”):

We can kill ObamaCare, I believe by enforcing our Michigan State Sovereignty. I’ve always thought this was a way to go. So much so that I tried to get it passed as a resolution in our Michigan Republican Party State Committee. I’ve run into people on our Issues Committee who are not ready and willing to fight for it there. They claim it’s too hard. Well, is it too hard to fight for our Freedom and our Country? Is it harder than what our soldiers are doing right now in the desert? Don’t they deserve to come home to an America they left? An America that they are over there sacrificing for? I think not. {…} [C] all the Governor’s office as it seems he’s bound and determined to have the ObamaCare exchange passed in this state.So much so that I tried to get it passed as a resolution in our Michigan Republican Party State Committee. I’ve run into people on our Issues Committee who are not ready and willing to fight for it there. They claim it’s too hard. Well, is it too hard to fight for our Freedom and our Country? Is it harder than what our soldiers are doing right now in the desert? Don’t they deserve to come home to an America they left? An America that they are over there sacrificing for? I think not. {…} We must not let the MI House pass the Exchange bill that the MI Senate already passed and that the Governor is sure to sign if the House passes it. If enough states refuse to pass this part of ObamaCare we might just be able to kill it as the bill did not fund the Feds to write these things from us. {…} Other things you can do. LEARN YOUR CONSTITUTION!! I hear so many “tea party people” pay lip service to the Constitution but then bend it when it’s something that they think will benefit them or someone they know. That’s just what I feel Justice Roberts has done. He was scared by press and pressure into WRITING LAW. He became an activist Judge! That is not supported by the very Constitution he was put there to uphold!

Apparently, our men and women in the military are fighting to protect us from affordable health insurance for everyone. Who knew?

What these maroons don’t appear to realize is that, if the states don’t create their own health insurance exchanges, one will be imposed on them by the federal government, the exact thing they say they are adamantly and loudly opposed to!

They are also bucking hospitals that are counting on more insured Americans to help expand Medicaid coverage to our poorest citizens:

A growing number of Republican governors, including Scott, Terry Branstad of Iowa, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Scott Walker of Wisconsin say they won’t carry out any parts of the law, which threatens to deny millions of poor people access to the Medicaid coverage it provides. But Obama and those uninsured people aren’t the only ones who stand to lose. Hospitals that currently treat the poor for free in emergency rooms were counting on a broad expansion of health insurance coverage to cut down on the number of unpaid bills on their books. The American Hospital Association and other national industry groups endorsed the health care reform law, calculating that more insured people would make up for $155 billion in lower Medicare payments over a decade. A smaller Medicaid expansion would be bad news for hospitals, especially in states like Florida and Texas with large numbers of uninsured people, according to Sheryl Skolnick, a health care equities analyst at CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Conn. “That risk is real and meaningful: the hospitals may end up paying for the poorest and sickest of today’s uninsured anyway AND see cuts in Medicare and Medicaid on top of that,” she wrote in a note to clients Friday.

But, that won’t stop this group who loves you until you disagree with them and then suddenly you are an “activist judge” who apparently wipes his feet on the Constitution. Their love affair with Governor Rick Snyder appears to be over, as well. After his vetoing of three voter suppression bills this week, MIRS news service is reporting that “At least one Michigan Tea Party group is rearing to find a primary opponent for Gov. Rick Snyder in 2014, and others are welcoming the idea of a debate in search a more conservative Republican”.

It’s frightening to me that a group of people that are so clearly misdirected are having such a major influence on our elections. If they were consistent in the application of their ideology, it would be one thing. But they are not. Theirs is a highly reactionary approach, one where they fight with outrage, even if it’s against the very thing they claim to be for. And, too often, their position is based on misinformation, lies, and a total lack of understanding of the issue at hand.

That’s no way to run a society. Our Founding Fathers would be embarrassed.

Here’s a key point the tea partiers seem not to understand: our country is a UNION. The UNITED States of America. We came together 236 years ago to form “a more perfect UNION”. Our American values have always been based on helping each other and looking out for those who are in need.

It’s spelled out in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, in fact:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

We have historically welcomed the “poor and huddled masses” from other countries and protected minority groups from “the tyranny of the majority”.

These traditional American values are not held by our tea party brothers and sisters. They have shifted to a new ideology, one that says, “I have what I need. If you don’t have what you need, you are on your own and I will not help you nor do you deserve to be helped. The ‘general Welfare’ is of no concern to me. MY welfare is all that matters.”

These people are not patriots. They are self-absorbed, selfish and ill-informed about the very things they say they are fighting for. The fact that the Republican Party has ceded its power to them should worry all of us.

[Photo credits: Chris Savage | Eclectablog]