Today I took a walk around the part of National City where I live, and I realized that the little flowers that bloom here must be looked at closely to see how beautiful they are.  Looking at things closely is almost always necessary if we are to be able to make reasonable judgements about what we see, about what we think we see.  As I walked along, I thought about what I have been hearing other people say about the Affordable Care Act, and the thing that is clear about opposition to it has been based on willingness to let poor people suffer the consequences of being poor whether or not their poverty has been brought on by circumstances they can't control. What seems obvious is that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who are moved to help others and those who either don't look closely at the plight of others or looking and seeing the distress of someone else decide not to respond with reasonable help.

"One of the most shameful things about modern America is that in our unbelievably rich land, the quality of health care available to many of our people is unbelievably poor, and the cost is unbelievably high ...

America now stands virtually alone in the international community on national health insurance. It seems that every nation is out of step but Uncle Sam. With the sole exception of South Africa, no other industrial nation in the world leaves its citizens in fear of financial ruin because of illness."

- Senator Edward Kennedy

Democratic National Convention, December 9, 1978