ABSTRACT
Few things have greater or deeper emotional resonance than the matter of care and few things are more closely linked to “home” and “place” than care. This chapter explores some of that resonance with specific reference to the opponents of the new health care law. It considers those for whom the salient issue is the danger care is thought to pose regardless of who purports to provide it. The important part that penance for sin and dependence on a capricious power play in the fantasy of small-town rural life suggests that the response to the Affordable Care Act has roots in ambivalence toward care and caregiving. Opposition to the Affordable Care Act based on the perception that it stands as a dangerous alternative to community and the special gratification community is imagined to provide differs from the opposition that sees in the law a way to undermine individual self-reliance.
