Let me preface this by saying that I voted for George Bush and other Republicans during the last election. While I’ve said many times that I agree with some of what GB says and disagree with some of what he says, I’m beginning to find myself disagreeing with his decisions more and more. As I sit here and think about what he and the Republican Congress have done over the last week alone, my stomach is literally upset. I don’t get that way easily.

While I understand that the conservative right “values life”, I am seeing more and more that it’s a very selective system. And, more and more, I’m seeing that it is a very political value.

I have always nodded in agreement when Republicans have stood at podiums and said that the government should be small and should not impose the government’s views on individuals. They have said time and time again that the movement in the U.S. to make homosexuality more tolerated and/or accepted must be stopped. They say that they (the Republicans) refuse to have “that lifestyle” shoved down their throats. However, they are guilty of the very same thing. Here they are shoving a life-beyond-all-reason stance down Michael’s, Terri’s, and every other U.S. citizen’s throat whether we like it or not. Just as they don’t want Ted Kennedy running their personal lives, I don’t want Bill Frist (or Ted) running mine.

It has come to my attention that, while Governor of Texas, George W. Bush signed into law the “Texas Futile Care Law”. This law gives hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care facilities the authority to turn off life support to anyone who was braindead or in a persistent vegetative state and, in the health care facility’s judgement, would not get better with treatement and the family could not pay for treatment, regardless of the family’s wishes!! You can’t pay? We flip the switch. Bye bye grandma, baby, sis, mom, dad, whoever.

This authority was exercised last Thursday on 6 month old Sun Hudson. He died after a Texas hospital removed his feeding tube, despite his mother’s pleas. He had a fatal congenital disease, but would have been kept alive had his mother been able to pay for his medical costs.

What’s different in Terri’s case? Number one, she’s in Florida, where, as far as I know, Jeb hasn’t signed a similar bill — probably due to the huge percentage of aging retirees that die and grant Florida a sizeable chunk of estate taxes. They wouldn’t want to delay anyone’s death and risk having medical bills eat up that tax base. Number two, her husband won a malpractice lawsuit soon after her brain damage and that money is paying for her treatment.

Of course, Congress is feverishly working to limit such lawsuits so that in the future families of people like Terri won’t have that benefit. They’ll have to pay for that treatment out of their own pocket. So what if the bills pile too high? File bankruptcy? Nope, Congress is also working feverishly to keep that from happening too.

What would you do in the situation where your spouse is terminally ill or a vegetable? It’s looking more and more like Republicans in Congress want you to keep your spouse alive, no matter what, until your money runs out. Then, you won’t have a choice. The medical facility will turn off their support, whether you want it or not, and send you packing. Then you’ll have plenty of time to get three or four jobs to try to pay off those hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills that you racked up. Maybe you’ll get it all paid off by the time you are shoveled into the grave next to your spouse. Probably not.

So, what the Republicans in Congress are doing is to suck every penny they can out of working-class people so that medical providers and big businesses can rake in the dough. Once they’ve raked it all in, Republicans want to make sure it stays there, by limiting lawsuits and making bankruptcy nearly impossible to pull off.

What are they creating? A class of indentured servants. Because of your circumstances, you may be forced to work all of your life to pay off a debt that you may or may not be responsible for. Even one that you were born into.