According to news reports, during the latest Republican presidential debate Carly Fiorina stated bluntly that “Obamacare isn’t really helping anyone.”
Hmm. That is a curious statement given the fact that some 16 million people who never had health insurance before have it now and that the number of Americans without insurance fell to 9 percent, the lowest in years.
Some critics say Fiorina knew the facts and blatantly lied in order to score a political point. Others say her statement shows she is not well informed on the issues.
Both of those are possible explanations for her statement, but here is what I think.
I think Carly Fiorina said what she said because she doesn’t “see” the people being helped by Obamacare. They are invisible to her, not on her life’s radar screen. She walks past them, is waited on in stores and restaurants by them, but never notices them.
They even worked for her at Hewlett Packard before she got canned, but she never saw them.
In Carly Fiorina’s world people who are not rich, and most assuredly people in need, just don’t exist. She lives and moves and has her being among the wealthy who need nothing.
So when she thinks about healthcare, her family and friends come to mind, and they have insurance, or can pay for any medical need without it. That is her world.
The problem is that her world is not the world most Americans live in, yet she wants to be president of both worlds, ours and hers. So do all the other Republican candidates.
Yet I think all of them are like her, they don’t see 16 million people who now have insurance they didn’t have before Obamacare. They didn’t see them before health reform and they still don’t.
That is a noteworthy example of the dividing line that now exists in our country, and it is why Carly Fiorina could make the kind of comment she did.
But her problem is not with her eyes. It’s with her heart. People like Fiorina who have eyes but don’t see and ears but don’t hear have heart trouble.
When scripture refers to someone’s heart being hardened it is talking about their inability to see or perceive things clearly. I believe that is what is wrong with Fiorina.
Sadly, though, the problem may not be fixable, in part because of the company she keeps. When you live in a small circle of people whose world is isolated from the one most people live in, it is difficult to see anything but what you have been conditioned to see.
What makes this situation especially sad is that the 16 million people Carly Fiorina doesn’t see know she doesn’t. They know they are not noticed or even looked at.
And they don’t understand it. After all, they don’t want a handout. They work hard, too, and want to pay their own way. But they also want to be seen, deserve to be seen, in fact.
But seeing them doesn’t get much political support these days when you’re running for office. That’s what Carly Fiorina knew the other night when she said Obamacare isn’t really helping anyone.
Again, maybe she did know better and was trying to score political points. Actually that would be bad enough, but I don’t believe it’s what made her say it.
No, I think she said it because she just doesn’t see the people who need her to see them.
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