This was originally posted as a comment in a diary posted earlier today by our own escapee. A wonderful diary, IMO. Unfortunately, I didn't convey my feelings clearly enough in my comment and they were misunderstood. I'm truly sorry for that.
Then I saw slinkerwink's diary at the top of the rec list and decided to post my lament as a diary.
I'm done.
I've been asked, very nicely by some, to be patient regarding the healthcare issue. "Timing," I've been told, "is key."
You see, I need healthcare. I cannot stress fully enough how badly I NEED HEALTHCARE.
Not dictated by private insurance companies, but single payer, universal healthcare. I NEED THIS. If there's any doubt, go through my diaries. It's all there.
I've been patient. I've been polite.
I don't know how to say this more clearly. The clock is ticking for some of us. I'm so tired of hearing about how broken things are and how patient we have to be, that there are no quick fixes. Blah, blah, blah. The cancer is slowly growing in my blood and bone marrow with every sweep of the second hand. Please excuse me if "timing" holds no weight in my mind.
And let me remind everyone just how easy some things can be. Things which were once thought to be hard and thought to take long periods of time to make happen . . . .
Remember the anthrax scare? And our government decided we needed to stockpile Cipro? (Apologies for the cached link, but Medscape was behaving badly.)
Shumer led the fight for a reduced price, reducing it from about $1.77/pill to $.95. Bayer, Cipro's manufacturer, said, "No." Canada held Bayer's patent for Cipro. And "our people" called "their people" who threatened to pull Bayer's patent on Cipro. Voila!! Our government miraculously stockpiled Cipro at $.95/pill.
I don't buy the rhetoric any more that everything takes long periods of time to enact. Correctly or incorrectly, I just don't.
How ironic that my tax dollars contribute to our elected officials' salaries and benefits packages, which I've read are more than just adequate. Yet they don't think enough of me (or any of us, really) to even consider giving us all adequate healthcare. The Golden Rule just doesn't apply. How silly and selfish of me to have thought that it might.
If I die waiting, so be it. I'll be another statistic. Someone may diary it and I'll be forgotten as soon as the thread scrolls down the list, just like this diary is certain to do.
The thing is, everyone out there in the ether is me. Some will have insurance and die with a bit less pain and a bit more dignity. Many won't. And the clock's ticking for all of us. Most just don't know it. Yet. ©