Today’s (Friday, Oct. 18) N.Y. Times reported in a front-page article on the “despair, anger and disillusionment” felt by ‘conservatives’ over Congress’ bipartisan vote this past Wednesday to reopen the federal government without defunding the three-year-old health care reform law, popularly termed “Obamacare.’

The talk radio and blogosphere homes frequented by the Tea Party faithful were apparently filled with condemnation for those ‘spineless’ Republicans who abjectly surrendered, rather than proceed with the drastic measures needed to prevent the reforms of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 from taking root in American society much the way pernicious health reforms like Medicare and Medicaid have.

Essentially, what we have seen from the most conservative members of the Republican Party, most of them in the House of Representatives, is the sort of principled “no matter what the consequences” cause-based stands long asssociated with the political left: the to-the-barricades French youth celebrated in “Les Miserables;” the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights movement, recently celebrated in the film “The Butler;” the environmentalists of the ’70s and ’80s who would chain themselves to redwoods to or lie down in front of bulldozers to block loggers or developers from despoiling what they thought was a vital environment; or the protestors who try to block access to military bases or pound on missiles, in order to stop drone use or prevent funding for nefarious military training provided to right-wing para-militaries in Central America.

The difference this time was that none of the Tea Party conservatives lay down in front of bulldozers, braved Klan members, or risked imprisonment for their cause.   Instead, they decided to take hostages to advance their ‘noble’ cause.  And the hostages were the American people.

Not all the American people, of course.  Just those who wanted to visit a national park or memorial, or those families seeking a military burial for a life sacrificed in service, or anyone who depends on the government for some key piece of his or her daily life.  Or, to boot, those who might benefit from the healthier economy that might exist in the absence of uncretainty and jitters about America’s default on its debts.

But, it was just a temporary hostage-taking — one which would end as soon as the President of the United States capitulated to their demands that he and other Democrats agree not to implement the key pieces of the health reform legislation that was enacted by Congress and the President three years ago.  Legislation which is THE signature reform of the Obama Administration.

“Defund Obamacare, and we will let the government function again,” said the conservatives — the same people who on more than 35 occasions in the past two years have attempted legislatively to repeal the law, without a bit of success.  That is why they had to take us all as hostages.

All in a good cause, right.  As the late, great Sen. Barry Goldwater — the darling of the conservative wing of the Republican party in the 1960s said: “Extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice.”

Well, not exactly.  The great cause for which we were all — to greater or lesser degree — held hostage in order to force concessions from the government was the termination of a law (the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. ‘Obamacare’) that aims to do the following:

1. Reduce the number of Americans who do not have health insurance by about 30 million persons.

2. Provide much more affordable health insurance to millions more, through the establishment of free markets in health insurance, markets in which consumers will have a real chance of being able to compare the costs of insurance plans that provide adequate coverage.  This massive reduction in health insurance costs will be driven by competition — a distinctly Republican concept.

3. Provide incentives for innovation in both the ways health care is provided in America and the establishment of criteria to help health care providers determine what is effective care and what is ineffective care.

4. Provide incentives for both hospitals and healthcare providers to take steps which lead both themselves and their patients towards greater health at a lower cost, i.e., provide and take preventive measures which reduce sickness before it arrives.

5. Create an expert body which will step in to reform Medicare when Congress cannot itself come up with reform legislation that would slow significantly the rapid growth of health care costs that threatens the future stability of the program which assures health care to all Americans over the age of 65.  The reforms adopted or suggested by that expert body will percolate down to help control the costs of ALL healthcare provided in this country.

All these “aims” are to be achieved by a package of measures in the Affordable Care Act which were created and legislated by both Democrats and Republicans working together in 2010 in the House and Senate.  The Democrats and the President gave up a lot of what they most wanted in order to get Republican — and national — support for the legislation.  That legislation aimed to fix what Presidents and Congresses since the time of Harry Truman and Richard Nixon had recognized was a terribly flawed system for the provision of and payment for health care — a system which left 17 per cent of the population without health insurance and an even larger percentage without adequate health insurance in the event of a medical emergency.

Now, the Affordable Care Act may not end up achieving all its aims.  In many states, governors have refused to expand insurance to cover more poor people, even though the Affordable Care Act assures that the federal government will pay for all the costs associated with that expansion for the near future.  Many states have refused to set up the marketplaces in which their citizens could make better informed decisions that should lead to more affordable, adequate health insurance.

In short, the Affordable Care Act may not be implemented as successfully as the Republicans and Democrats who created and enacted the Act had intended.  Nevertheless, its aims for an America in which citizens did not have to live in fear that illness or injury would crush them financially, as well as physically, are noble.  Its aims to make the cost of health care in this country — which spends more per person BY FAR on such care than any country in the world — more affordable are sound management — efficient.

Neither description can be applied to those Republicans who this October so willingly put the American-People hostages in harm’s way to stop a bulldozer that seeks only to build a safer, fairer, more efficient health care system in America.

Tom Hanks, when you finish with those pirates in the film “Captain Phillips,” there are some others whom you should take on.