Civic responsibility

I am getting extremely tired of reading op-ed pieces telling us our fellow citizens are low information voters because they can't be expected to expose themselves to information about politics.  After all, they have jobs, lives, children and they are far too busy to make time to help govern themselves.  These snowflakes only pay attention to who represents them in a very peripheral way and only in the last few days before an election.  Besides, they can't be expected to miss the latest episode of Survivor or Dancing with the stars.  MSNBC is the soundtrack of my and the Divine Mrs. M's life.  We also subscribe to our local paper and the NYT.   We have spirited discussions regarding the issues of the day.  While we consume more progressive or "left wing" media, we also have a BS filter in place when confronted with non fact based reporting or opinion.  I have friends who do the same thing from a right wing perspective.  Of course, the facts do have a well known liberal bias.  But I digress.  A healthy democracy needs a majority of its citizens to be knowledgeable and engaged in the civic process to the extent they can at least name their congresscritters and the issues that affect them locally and nationally.  Without this engagement, people who don't have the average person's best interest at heart will be doing the governing.  A case in point is the American Health Care Act.  A stunning majority of Americans when asked if they support the bill answer negatively.  Yet the bill stands a good chance of replacing Obamacare and leading to millions of people losing health insurance and millions more getting poorer coverage.   Why is this?  Did these same people vote for the representatives who will ignore their wishes?  Many of them have either never voted or only do so in Presidential election years.  Poor turnout and disengagement from politics will result in poor health outcomes for many of these low information voters.  Unless and until we bring a majority of citizens into the process we will have less than optimum results for most of us.