By skyforbes 
Senator Joni Ernst’s flip comment that “we are all going to die” while defending proposed Medicaid cuts in a town hall yesterday took me back to a Steve Earle song, “Amerika v. 6.0 (The Best We Can Do),” from his 2002 Jerusalem album:
There’s doctors down on Wall Street sharpenin’ their scalpels and tryin’ to cut a deal
Meanwhile, back at the hospital, we got accountants playin’ God and countin’ out the pills
Yeah, I know, that sucks — That your HMO ain’t doing what you thought it would do
Well, everybody’s gotta die sometime
And we can’t save everybody, it’s the best that we can do
The song’s protagonist goes on to add:
Four score and a hundred and fifty years ago our forefathers made us equal, as long as we can pay
Yeah, maybe that wasn’t exactly what they was thinkin’ version six-point-o of the American Way
But hey, we can just build a great wall around the country club to keep the riff-raff out until the slump is through
Yeah, I realize that ain’t exactly democratic but it’s either them or us and it’s the best we can do
Written nearly a quarter of a century ago, these words seem strangely prescient. Is this the best we can do?