As I have read the excellent articles, editorials and commentaries in the local and national press about the Republican’s efforts to repeal Obama Care, I am struck by an overall conclusion that is very disturbing and cruel. 
More than 4 million Africans were enslaved by Euro-Americans before the Civil War to be used as forced laborers to build greater wealth for rich Americans. After the Civil War, through means like Jim Crow laws and other regulations, white Americans managed to keep African-Americans in poverty, and thereby controlled, while white Americans continued to build wealth.
At the same time, Native Americans were initially pushed west causing them great disruption. By the mid-19th century, Native Americans were forced onto reservations, again to their detriment and to the white Americans gain. Reservations were used to control their inhabitants, while Indian lands were taken to create increased wealth for white Americans. 
By the mid-20th century, American business and industry was changing again to increase wealth. Companies were closing or moving operations out of the country with little effort to protect and retrain their employees. As a result, many white Americans were left in poverty, joining the African and Native Americans. Again poverty served as a controlling factor allowing other Americans to build greater wealth without taking responsibility for their poorer countrymen. 
At times, some Americans passed laws and made changes that attempted to have the wealthy pay their fair share in order to provide support for those in poverty and for those struggling to pay their own way. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the best known and largest programs created to assist people contending with poverty, or with disabilities, or with retirement. 
Most recently, the Affordable Care Act was created to assist with increasingly expensive health care costs that have been making it extremely difficult for low-income people to survive. It also requires the wealthy to pay a fair portion of this new program. The ACA is a massive undertaking that in the last few years has started to make progress with its designated goals. In combination with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid the Federal and most state governments have established a critical safety net for all Americans. 
However, it appears that with the new leadership in the U.S. Government, efforts are being made to cut back substantially on Medicaid and Affordable Health Care. In this effort I see an ugly and distressing scenario. If it succeeds, millions of Americans will be pushed into poverty, as were African Americans, Native Americans, and many white Americans who lost their jobs. Again, this seems to be happening only for the benefit of wealthy Americans. The latter will no longer pay their fair share to help support needy people in our American society. Again, they will be in the position of controlling our society through a form of economic slavery. 
Tim Williams
Middlebury
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