Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. 

As the healthcare debate rages in Washington over repeal of the Affordable Healthcare Act and its replacement the American Healthcare Act it’s obvious the new plan proposed by President Donald Trump and U.S. Senate Republicans needs more work – the details of which are difficult for the general public to understand or unknown. There still are no clear answers how TrumpCare will be any better than the failed ObamaCare.

With so many variables from state to state the overall messaging from the president’s media staff and U.S. Senate to the American people via mainstream media is as confusing as a double-talking con-man trying to sell you oceanfront property in Kansas or a ‘one-owner’ used car. President Trump and his team are saying the things people want to hear like lower monthly payments, choose your own doctor and choose the best plan from a choice of insurance providers, but what is the reality of it all?

The Congressional Budget Office this week is expected to release many of the financial details in a report to Congress, and therefore the American people, detailing actual costs to individuals and families across the country. Also this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says he hopes to bring the new TrumpCare plan up for a vote in the full Senate, but at least five Republican senators say they will not vote for the plan as it is now, according to news reports. No Senate Democrats are on-board.

With all the infighting going on within the Senate over this new healthcare plan there’s no feasible way to bring this matter to a successful vote in the Senate without a better understanding of how TrumpCare will actually affect the people who need it. This issue needs much more debate and compromise in the Senate before it gets passed. McConnell for some reason is in a rush to get this passed before the July 4th Congressional break so they can take up President Trump’s call for tax reform after the break.

TrumpCare has already passed in the U.S. House. A successful vote in the Senate would send the new healthcare bill to President Trump for his signature. Then ObamaCare would be officially repealed and replaced with President Trump’s American Healthcare Act of 2017. But in the long-term no one really knows if it will work out or not. That’s the overall perception being presented to the American public by mainstream media, the Congress and the president, too.

The Democrats are spewing scare tactics calling Republicans the “death party.” While the Republicans are attempting to come together in unity and pass the new healthcare plan even if it passes by only one vote. What if it comes down to a tie in the Senate? Will Vice President Mike Pence cast the deciding vote? Or will he vote against it? If the bill is passed to President Trump’s desk, will he veto it? If this bill does not meet Trump’s expectations, then what happens?

Down the road the American voters may be the ones to make fundamental changes in how these bigger issues — affecting virtually everyone in the USA — are decided. Just say the words “National Voter Referendum” and watch the Washington freak out begin. There is every right reason for American voters to decide to eliminate health-insurance companies and go with some form of single-payer universal healthcare.

But what about other large issues like term limits for the U.S. Congress.

Binding national voter referendums on single-payer healthcare and Congressional term limits are inevitable at some point in the future. Only by direct order from the American people will the U.S. Congress approve single-payer universal healthcare or term limits upon them.

If single-payer universal healthcare is passed by voters then the U.S. Congress and the president would be forced to deal with a national budget that deletes entire government agencies – such as the U.S. Department of Education — in order to offer universal healthcare to American citizens like so many other nations large and small already have – like virtually all of Europe, Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, Russia, Costa Rica, Panama and Argentina. The USA is not in step with the rest of the civilized world.

Special interest groups such as large pharmaceutical companies, hospital chains and the American Medical Association representing doctors are all against single-payer universal healthcare mainly because that would drastically cut the vast amounts of profit made in the total healthcare industry in the USA.

These special interest groups — that donate heavily to political campaigns — would raise holy hell with Washington if the U.S. Congress moved anywhere near single-payer universal healthcare for Americans. Congress is its own private club and they will not give up an inch of their power and they will maintain the medical status quo — the new plan will not be much different from the old plan.

We know who the career politicians are – McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and John McCain, etc. Many in Congress have been in office for decades. Limiting their terms is one way the government would be run more by the people, for the people and not by special interests that have far reaching influence. Those favoring term limits for Congress suggest U.S. Senators serve only two 6-year terms while U.S. Representatives serve three 2-year terms. After 12 or 6 years in Congress it’s time to go home and bring in new faces with fresh ideas. It’s time for citizen legislators — like the Founding Fathers of the U.S. Constitution envisioned – not career politicians who dig in for the long haul.

Just suppose term limits were voted in during the upcoming 2018 mid-term elections, some 227 members of the U.S. Congress would be out of office, according to U.S. Term Limits — a group dedicated to enacting term limit laws from local town councils to the U.S. Congress.  Of course its doubtful Congress will kill themselves off, but the voters can and should demand Congressional term limits like many state governments and big cities already have.

Placing national voter referendums on the ballot in all 50 states is a lengthy and costly process, hence the reason there are so few voter referendums on national ballots. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible. Using a Constitution Amendment to enact term limits as President Trump has suggested would be more difficult than a voter referendum. When it comes to healthcare and term limits the U.S. Federal Government is way behind the times. Let the voters decide to further ‘drain the swamp.’