The New York Times Takes Us out to the Volleyball Game

Take me out to the ballgame, 

Take me out to the game.

Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack –

I don’t care if I never come back.

“Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, Title of 1908 song

This Sunday, the New York Times, has one article on ObamaCare.  It' buried the piece  on page 20. Its title is “Human Volleyballs in the Health Care Clash.”

The volleyballs are real people. Republicans and Democrats are batting them back and forth across the net to highlight tales of woe among ObamaCare players.  

There are no peanuts or crackerjacks being served .  Rather, note the Times,  people posing as volleyballs  are “Props in a debates, ‘real people,’ experiencing sudden, and unwelcome, notoriety.”

The Times gives 5 examples of these human volleyballs.

·         Betty Grenier of Chataway, Washington.  She complained of a subsidized health plan which she opposed philosophically and instead chose a Christian Missionary plan which she said was cheaper and better. The office of Democrat Nancy Pelosi batted her back across the net by saying she had not explored all the ObamaCare optional plans and had played the role of a "poster woman for ObamaCare victimization.”

·         Nancy Clark of North Conway, New Hampshire.    She said she was having fits trying to gain access to healthcare.gov. Democrats smashed her back across the net by noting she later had obtained access to ObamaCare exchange plans with better benefits and lower rates than her previous plans. Better later than never said the Democrats who spiked the ball.

·         Paul Brayshaw, a hemophiliac  from Falls Church, Virginia, who, as a consequence of ObamaCare no longer had lifetime limits and could not be denied coverage because of prior condition.   But now, because of narrowing of networks, he might have another plan and move to another state or travel great distances for care. Republicans scored points out  of his new dilemma. 

·         Edie Littlefield Sunby, a  California cancer victim, went public with struggle to find a new  health policy that would fit her needs.  Dan Pfeiffer, a senior White House advisor,  twittered her and twitted her by observing the problem was not ObamaCare but a health insurer misdeed.   Republicans volleyed this back across the net, saying it showed the heartlessness of Obama’s inner circle. 

·         Cornel Kelly of Long Island who tried enroll  in a plan on the New York health exchange only to find the new plan required him to drop his 18 month old daughter from the plan. Speaker Boehner took up Kelly’s cause.  On Boehner’s website was called a Ku Klux Klansman.  MSNBC said Kelly had concocted a bogus story.

This volleying back and forth using human volleyballs usually entails calling the person involved a deadbeats, freeloaders,  or worse. 

Volleyball is usually thought as a  nonviolent game, devoid of physical contact but not in the political arena.   Human volleyballs are fair game.  

Let’s hope these games end soon.  They will.  Volleyball is a nonviolent sport that  ends with the ball grounded on the opposite of net, rather than being continually kept in the air.

Tweet:  ObamaCare partisanship has degenerated into human volleyball,  with the human volley balls being castigated as deadbeats, freeloaders, or worse