Reading the diaries and comments on this site it is apparent that in between the divide between the 'kill the bill' and 'something is better', little is being asked of the people who actually need to have health care
Well, as someone who does, let me give you my 2 cents on this bill and the fall out from it.
My mother is from France. So, half my family has very good, french health care and I envy them.
Several years ago my cousin had a baby and almost died. She had emergency surgery of some hours (don't remember how long but, it was over 3 hours) to save her life.
If she lived here, She and her boyfriend would be bankrupt. Their lives ruined financially.
20 years ago my son was in an accident and broke his femur and was in traction for a month. He was 6. I was at a new job and my health care would not kick in for about 2 to 3 weeks.
I did go bankrupt.
I have several chronic conditions. I am not on social security as I can manage them with medication and exercise. I have fibromyalgia and restless leg and depression.
Medication is expensive and I need to have doctor visits as well. Not every month but, it's good to see him at least once or twice a year for my medication monitoring.
Blood work.
I am lucky in that my husband had insurance until he got laid off 18 months ago in an area that is depressed. He has ADD. You do not grow out of it and it can be crippling as you get older. he is on meds and does great.
We were on Cobra for awhile but, it was just too expensive.
My husband just found a temporary job that he thinks he will be hired for. As someone over 50 and in a depressed area, this is fantastic. But, we won't see insurance for months.
It's a small firm so, insurance costs may be dicey in the future.
My dream is to have France's health care. With the conservative rule of the past 30 years, a compliant press that does not educate the public on the facts anymore, just the gossip, an opposition party with its own network, and the fear mongering mantras to a public conditioned on conservative ideology, I know that to have this kind of health care will take a very long time, if at all.
The Public Option was promising but, I knew it would go down because far too many liberals decided to make it a public holy grail and gave the opposition something to go after.
I look up to and deeply respect Howard Dean. He was the best DNC Chair we had and his voice is one I completely trust. I wished the administration would have listened to him, hired him and gave him more respect.
But, I also trust my president. He is actually a very decent person and wants to do right. But, he believes in the congress making laws and being a co-equal branch. This legislation, he felt, should be done by congress as their constitutional powers say. That is what you get with a Constitutional Law Professor for President. But, that is far better then the imperial president that was Bush.
Somethings you have that is good and some things are not so good. That is life.
You take it in stride. Nothing is perfect and nothing is 100% the way you want.
Life does not work that way.
We got a crappy bill. One that I certainly am not happy with. But, it is far better then staring down the nose of nothing. Of a black hole of nothing. If my husband or myself do not have insurance at some time in the next decade, our life will be a black hole.
We are not rich. Heck, we are not even okay. We have a very small, postage stamp size home. Our cars are great but, used. I have a nice garden and some cats (pooties). I have my art supplies, books and such but, we are not living in suburban wonderland or anything like that. But, we are happy. The cost of medical kind of keeps us from having more in life.
Even with insurance.
If you succeed in killing the bill as people like our dear leader, Kos (just kidding Marcos), Ed Schultz (give the guy some xanax, please!) and Hamsher (talk about extreme and over the top and divisive. Too bad she doesn't use her ways on republicans instead of fellow democrats), ect., you will do two things.
- You will condemn people like me to that damn black hole for the next decade or so. Health care will not be revisited and the bill fixed if it is killed and it will not be tackled until our senate and congress are no longer so dysfunctional.
- It will not be revisited because you will have weakened the president too much for him to be able to muster his troops or make his own side even look at health care. And it will give the republicans a victory that they will ride in a wave of incredible strength and we will have 1994 all over again.
Look for a republican president in 2012 as well.
I am not fear mongering. I have seen how things go, how hard the public is and especially the republicans, are on this president now. they will consider him a failure and vote republican.
do not look for much reforms in the coming years as well, including getting a handle on climate Change and China.
this bill is much more then just some progressive purity test. It is a test of if this country will be able to move it back to where it once was and reset the mindset and landscape of American to make reform even possible.
And it give peace of mind and some hope for people who do have medical issues. No, I don't want the insurance companies to continue to rip me off but, they will rake my finances either way and the bill will give me some protections.