...I'm nobody. At the same time, I am somebody. I am nobody to the Republican Congressional leadership and the Teabaggers because it is, I suppose, my own fault that I had the poor taste and poor genes to produce a child who in his sixth year of life suffered a pancreatic failure that resulted in him becoming a Type I diabetic. He's drawing close to 18 now and has had the sort of health care that every American deserves only because I work for an entity that forbids contracted insurance providers from rescinding coverage because of pre-existing conditions...
...on the other hand, I'm somebody - and my kid is somebody - because the House Democratic majority has finally, at long last, taken what is hopefully one of the last long steps to corral the strange, unfair, obscene nature of unregulated for-profit health care insurance that has destroyed lives and families for longer than I've been alive. The Fear that I have lived with for the last dozen years has been what will become of my second-born child, burdened with a king hell biggie of preexisting conditions, when it's time for him to make that fledgling journey from the family nest. Insulin pens, doctor appointments, and blood test kits (or, more to the point, the test strips for those test kits) are ferociously expensive, to the point that they can overpower the ability of a young person at the bottom of the income ladder to afford...
What happened tonight, as Winston Churchill said as the Battle of Britain wound down, is merely the end of the beginning. It is, however, a bright flash of hope for my son. It offers a hope that he can choose to be what he wants to be without fearing that he will be faced with the personally crushing burden of trying to figure out how to pay for the things that can simply keep him alive and the hope for a long meaningful life despite the "who he is" factor over which he never had any control...
Tonight's vote was not the first step toward a victory for those of us who long for single-payer or for a Public Option. It was not the first step toward a victory for complete access to reproductive rights. God help me, though, it was a profound first step toward victory for one of the most important things in my life - my son's ability to live a life free of concerns about how he might pay for all those things that will afford him the opportunity to lead a full and meaningful life...
I apologize for being so cravenly parochial tonight; I truly feel bad that the health care reform that I've longed for won't be happening. But what has been passed means something that matters tremendously in my little corner of the world, beyond all the bigger issues. It means I and my kid are somebody...