Kate Miller: Republicans attack on ACA is an attack on blacks & other minorities

To The Daily Sun,

A letter writer to Saturday's paper has stepped over the line. The statement that, "Blacks are to Democrats what poker chips are to gamblers" is repugnant. The claim that Democrats are actively "selling victimhood as a political product" is a hate-filled falsity that could not be further from the truth.

What is true is the political fact that the Republican Party made as its sole mission, throughout the eight years of the Obama presidency, the opposition of every single policy advanced by that administration, including the rescue of the auto industry and the passage of the Affordable Care Act and, here in N.H., the expansion of Medicaid.

And the assertion that the "best president for blacks economic welfare this century has been Donald Trump" is directly undercut by his administration's move this week to demand that the Supreme Court repeal the Affordable Care Act. This request comes as black (and brown) Americans make up the largest proportion of Covid-19 patients and thus most in need of health care benefits. This recent act is especially outrageous in the face of the administration's serious mishandling of the pandemic which has put black lives in the highest risk category.

From Congressman John Lewis to the late Congressman Elijah Cummings to Senator Cory Booker — three of the most eloquent black Democrats in our party's history — Democrats have strived to even the economic and social playing fields in our country. Unfortunately, our nation's progress has been minimal.

This should not be a political issue. Democrats and Republican, liberals and conservatives; we should all join forces to put an end to all forms of discrimination in our country: race, gender, and belief-system-based among them.

I don't play poker, but I don't treat any lives like poker chips.

Kate Miller

Meredith