http://www.politicususa.com/en/fdr-health-careIt was once a foregone conclusion that America was an exceptional country that offered freedom, unlimited opportunity, and a constitution that protected every citizen regardless of race, religion or economic status. In 2011, conservatives are moving to further distinguish America as exceptional in areas that every other wealthy industrialized nation considers disgraceful.
The Republican Party has assailed Americans’ most basic rights that Franklin Delano Roosevelt attempted to establish over 60 years ago. On January 11, 1944, FDR proposed a second bill of rights to address what are arguably simple human rights that every citizen in the wealthiest nation on Earth should expect as normal. Although Roosevelt’s basic necessities of life should be the goal of every politician tasked with ensuring Americans’ well-being was second-to-none, there was opposition from conservatives then, just like there is today.
Roosevelt’s second bill of rights included the right to have decent medical care, and it has been illusive for over 60 years until Democrats passed the Affordable Health Act in 2010. Although the AHA is not the universal health care Roosevelt envisioned, it is a start. It has also engendered outrage from conservatives who believe that adequate, affordable healthcare is a privilege, and not a right. Conservatives perpetuate America’s exceptionalism in denying all of Roosevelt’s basic rights, but it is the lack of health care that distinguishes America as a third-rate nation where only the wealthiest citizens have access to the best medical care in the world.
Republicans chastise President Obama for not promoting American exceptionalism to the rest of the world, but in many areas, America’s exceptionalism is considered shameful and a disgrace in other industrialized nations. It is remarkable that advanced capitalist countries adopted Roosevelt’s second bill of rights that is responsible for their people’s prosperity, contentment, and longer lifespan than Americans, but Republicans are intent on keeping America exceptional; for denying basic human rights to its citizens.
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