Lost to President Obama.
Maybe lost to the Democratic Party.
I just sent the letter in the body to Whitehouse.gov. I'm sure some staffer will eventually skim it. I have no realistic hope that it will ever come close to the President, but I wanted them to know that I'm slipping away.
Dear Mr. President.
333 days ago, I stood on the National Mall, with millions of my fellow citizens, to witness your inauguration. I held my wife tightly with tears running down our eyes as you took the oath of office. Tears. We'll get back to that. We drove from through snow and ice from Iowa City, Iowa, where I was finishing my PhD graduate study in Social and Administrative Pharmacy. Your message of hope and change inspired us. Inspired me as I moved towards the end of my life's work as a pharmacist, in training the next generation of practicioners. With such hope that the care that I saw being denied because of insurance industry greed would become available for the patients I was not able to help. The small pharmacy could not afford to give away medications. There often were tears, on both sides of the counter. Tears that I thought might no longer be shed.
Today I read the "reform" plans being thrust upon us, and again, tears. Tears because I know this won't help the millions who believed they would get help. Tears because I know things won't be any better. And tears because I'm starting to feel my trip to Washington, to stand in the cold that day, was a waste of time. I thought finally we had an intelligent, progressive, and most of all, courageous President. And today, with more tears, I'm thinking that those thoughts were wrong....