Do you know what it feels like to have an anaphylactic reaction? Let me tell you about the one that nearly killed me this past June. I was sitting in the library, reading a book about nut allergies, when my upper chest started feeling heavy. I had to consciously breathe, and breathe harder, in order to get enough air. It got worse, and my throat started to harden. It felt like my throat was turning to stone. I wheezed and rasped my way over to the water fountain and thought, offhandedly, "Can you imagine what an awful place to die your local public library is?"
Luckily, I wasn't so far gone that Benadryl and caffeine (the poor allergy sufferer's substitute for the actual medicine we need, epinephrine) couldn't bring me back. But why should I have to rely on them? Why can't I just call an ambulance and go to the hospital?
Got it in one. I'm one of the working poor. I make a bit more than the offical federal povery level for a family of two. The only health insurance my work offers, which is not guaranteed against rexcission, is a CIGNA catasrophic health plan. That will not get me the allergy testing or epinephrine prescription I need in order to take the best possible care of myself.
I did ask my local allergist, the least expensive of the many allergists I asked, if there were any provisions for the uninsured poor like me. His billing specialist said, "Oh, we don't do charity."
So what are you going to do about this problem, President Obama?
I voted for you, of course. The Right didn't brainwash me to vote against my own economic interestes, even when I was an evangelical Christian. And one of those reasons is that I frequently do get sick from my food allergies, have bad reactions, and most likely will have to eventually make the decision either to become homeless or die when I have my next anaphylactic reaction.
I've been hearing for months, now, that you're in bed with the corporate interests who cheerfully murder 18,000 of our fellow Americans each year. Each time a new report, a new rumor comes to life, a segment of the progressive community of which I have been a proud member for 36+ years now, says that this proves it. You're not going to help us. We're going to have to fight you as well as the health insurance companies to save our own, and our friends', and our fellow Americans' lives.
Now, I've been attributing this to 16+ years of Republican government. (Sorry, Hillary, if you read this...but I feel it's true.) To paranoia. To the glow of the campaign and the win wearing off...and, frankly, to the fact that you haven't shown the compassion we expected to those in pain.
You expressed support to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, but not to the survivors of Hurricane Torture. (When is a full criminal investigation, as required by our laws and treaties, coming, again?) You have given support to survivors of Unequal Pay with the Lily Leadbetter bill, but have not given supoort to the hurting under our Unequal Marriage laws. And we now fear you won't give support to those of us experiencing Hurricane Cancer. Or Hurricane Stroke, or H. On The Job Injury, or H. Such High Medical Bills I Go Bankrupt.
Prove the naysayers wrong. Show us that you care about those of us who are sick and have no affordable health care.
Or we will fight you.
Oh, yes. I am not going to give up the fight, even if Joe Lieberman and Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley would rather see me dead than with affordable health care...and even if you join them in their contempt and disdain for me. Even if the entire Congress rolls over for their corporate masters, I will keep fighting to have affordable health care.
Even if I have to work to take you down, too. Even if I have to start attending Democratic Party meetings and working so that real Democrats, the ones I remember from my childhood, people like Ted Kennedy who actually love those of us who are sick and poor and doing our damnedest to get by, replace you and the Corporatists, Democrat and Republican alike.
But I'd rather not have to fight you, President Obama. I'd rather have you live out your campaign promise that you, that we, working together, can do better than to leave innocent people to die under Hurricanes Katrina, and Cancer, and Food Allergy, and Diabetes. I'd love to say with you, "Let us all be able to shout at the end of the day, get your hands off my Medicare." I'd love to see you boldly take on the exonomic interests who don't care if we lose our homes, our jobs, our lives, so that they can buy another mansion, or yacht, or Rolls. I'd love to work with you, President Obama.
So would my friend "Bob" the trucker. (I can't use his real name, you understand, as I didn't ask his permission to include him.) He's a really nice person. He always asks how I'm doing and is really concerned about the people around him. He has made a home for his grandchildren who need his support.
He doesn't have affordable health care, either. Oh, his employer offered him catastrophic health care, and he took it, but now Bob is having diabetic attacks. He's been working for the past two weeks while he's been feeling horribly sick. His insurance won't cover him, and he's afraid that if he goes to the hospital, he'll be dropped and have to pay those medical bills on his own. He told me that he'd like our government to do something about this.
I would, too. I'd like you to allow him, and me, and everyone else who sweats and bleeds and works and barely gets by despite not being at "poverty level" even though we're poor, to buy into Medicare. Or to pass a law outlawing for-profit basic health care and its abuses. Or even to expand Medicaid to cover us.
I understand you're giving a speech on Wednesday to Congress. Tell me, what are you going to say in it that will ensure I don't join those 18,000 Americans who die each year because of our current system?
I hope it is change we can believe in. If it is not, you can believe this: I will fight you and your rich, corporate friends, with every breath left in my body, with every fiber of my being, with heart and mind and soul and every God I can call on, to defeat you. I wlll not die to ensure health insurance profits. I will not give up.
I hope you don't give up, either.