Ok, so we've all had our share of heartbreaking health care (or lack thereof) stories over the last few months, but I've got to add another one, not only because it was produced by my friend Julie Winokur and aired on MSNBC tonight, but because I need to get something off my chest about this whole health care and public option debate. First, please check out this story about Sheila Wessenberg, who died from breast cancer after her husband lost his contract job because of her pre-existing condition.
You see, I've never thought of this health care debate from my own selfish perspective, because I don't have a personal horror story and I'm able to afford my monthly premium (that got jacked up 50% earlier this year, thank you very little, Anthem Blue Cross) and have had the good fortune to be healthy and never had to see a doctor (Anthem Blue Cross thanks me and likes me very much). I thought it was my duty to fight for all those people getting dropped and screwed and too poor to afford health insurance, but that I personally don't really have a reason to complain because I've been so damn lucky.
I always played by all the rules. But when I was faced with this catastrophic illness and it became just a business decision on their part, my whole world changed.
- Bob Wessenberg
But you know what? That's what Bob Wessenberg thought, too. He was making 100k in his contractor job and he wasn't thinking about a public option or universal health care or how his insurance company was really run. All he thought about was that he was insured and it didn't matter where the money or coverage would come from if ever there should be a sickness in his family. You see, he was one of us lucky healthy people who the insurance companies are banking on not caring who they pay their premiums to.
It's so hard for me to remember what my Mom was like when she wasn't sick.
- Amy Wessenberg
When I see the continued almost tortured verbal and legislative gymnastics even in the much celebrated public option-containing bill by Harry Reid, I realize we have a long way to go. This bill still sounds like a major apology for even bringing up the idea of a government run health plan, as if it was saying "I'm sorry, we had to do it to take care of some of these problems with people dying and getting kicked to the curb by insurance companies, but we're just going to get as teenie weenie little public optiony as we possibly can because ultimately we're still totally hooked on the free market capitalism-rules-the-world myth.
As Rachel Maddow said so eloquently yesterday:
But we also didn't get what they do in Britain and the V.A or what they got in Canada with Medicare. We also didn't get a public option available to everyone or even a public option available only to uninsured people.
What we got is a public option that's only available to uninsured people only in some places. Woo-hoo! Thank goodness we got 60 Democrats in the Senate, right?
I'm finally realizing that this is personal, and it has to be personal, not just for those who are bearing the brunt of this utterly heartless and shameful system, but for those of us who are doing okay right now, the silent majority that's been feeding the bloodsuckers' coffers with our premiums, perceived invulnerability, and the expected detachment of the contented. Right now, as the public option is being gutted down so that it may not give the appearance that it could possibly be for those who don't really need it, it is time to shed the modesty and inhibition and say: "What about MY public option???"
Sheila became eligible for Medicare the day after she died.
Because you know, I might be doing okay now, but I don't trust these corpocrats with a stick, and I want to OPT OUT of THEIR death trap. I want a government-run, fair, and social(ist) plan that treats me just like anyone else, whether I'm healthy or sick. I want to give my money to someone who is going to use that money to treat everybody, and you know what, I'll even pay a HIGHER premium just for the knowledge that my money doesn't pay for some fat cat's yacht in the Caribbean.
If the word "public" should retain any kind of meaning, then if you're going to have something called a public option it has got to be an option for ALL OF US. Otherwise call it something else, like "The Great Circumstantial Regional Tentative Emergency Opt-out Compromise of Some Time in the Future." But come on you legislators and politician people, say it ain't so. Please please give me a chance to buy into your beautiful soothing not for profit health plan. My wallet is wide-open!
That's your only mom you'll ever have.
- Amy Wessenberg