MARCH MADNESS WITH NO TEAM PLAYERS?

March Madness! A long haul to the Sweet 16, then competitions to the finish, resulting in ultimate success for only one team, then on to the next season and the battles begin again in March 2018. In the midst of these intense rounds, referees call out fouls and any deviations from sportsmanlike behavior. With numerous upsets and our favorite team eliminated, we continue to root for the remaining teams until the last one is standing. We are cheering for college basketball, regardless of who wins. They are all privileged young basketball players who succeeded by honing their skills to a level of excellence and forgoing their egos to work as a team. In the process, while aggressively pursuing the basket on their side of the court, they treat their opponents with respect. I recently saw a player stop and pick up a fallen opponent from the floor, while in the midst of charging down the court. While everyone is working hard to win, just making it into the Sweet 16 is experienced as a major success.

There has been another March Madness in 2017 which had no referees and much unsportsmanlike behavior – it has been the U.S House of Representatives, the White House, and much of the media’s message during this 2017 health care legislation and vote fiasco. Unfortunately, the activity in the Capitol chambers has not been as admirable as the college athletes on the courts. Equally disappointing is realizing the process of drafting significant legislation which affects millions of peoples’ welfare was reduced to a competition between opponents’ egos. Definitive winners and losers were immediately proclaimed following the vote, based solely on party affiliations, while others declared their hope that the remaining health care law would fail. No one was offering any hopeful, constructive ideas, derived from the hearings prior to the vote, which could lead to fixing the existing health care law to better meet the needs of the American people. All of the rhetoric was about “imploding” “destroying” “failing” “eliminating” “repealing” “excluding” and “losing.”

This is a disturbing state of affairs. While “Politics” may be a spectator sport for many, Congressional representation and lawmaking should not be. Once elected, these representatives are charged with voting according to the mandates of their constituents, instead of succumbing to blackmail by their party leadership, threats by lobbyists, or fears of losing financial support for their re-elections. No one in Congress appears to be their own man. Our Congress was meant to work together as a team, with many egos and differing ideas contributing to the ultimate goals of that team. Originally, the objective of the Legislative branch was for the individuals in the group to aggressively fight for the best welfare of their citizenry through effective fact gathering, consultation, persuasion, and compromise. Sports’ fans are loud and vocal when their players let them down. As voters, tell your representatives to become team players or we will get rid of them.

Governing is serious business and requires hard work and dedication. The Sweet 16 players seem to be more dedicated to their sport than our elected representatives are to their sworn duties. What is my whine? No one “won” as a result of this health care bill vote fiasco. Everyone lost. It is not the Democrats’ loss, or the Republicans’ loss, or the President’s loss; it is the people of America’s loss. Instead of taking the time needed to gather data from health care delivery systems that have proven to work in other countries; identifying the positive, as well as the negative, aspects of the Affordable Care Act through hearings with experts; and then formulating a health care plan that best considered all; our representatives needlessly rushed into repealing the law before having fully developed an effective plan to replace it. If a great basketball team decides to introduce a new play, the coaching staff and the players perform due diligence in watching reels of prior games, practice endlessly to ensure the play actually works, and arrive at the court prepared to execute something new which truly enhances the game. Recently, politics has been like watching a bunch of screaming toddlers running around a basketball court with no organized plays, while the media curses them from the sidelines!