Now I am sure I want reform to pass on Sunday, because if I feel helpless and hopeless, how much worse must it be to people who can't even afford Healthy NY? I don't get dental, mental, or vision, the three things I need the most. At least if my appendix bursts, I'll be okay. Well, as okay as anyone is after her appendix bursts.
I don't want anyone else to feel this way.
My quality of life has gone downhill since I began worrying about insurance. I have made the best of my situation, but I always have that nagging fear at the back of my mind: what if? What if one of my teeth gets an abscess and it bursts? What if my eyesight gets worse again? What if, universe forbid, the psych meds stop working? What do I do then? Gamble that nothing catastrophic will happen to the rest of my body, stop the Healthy NY, and buy $200 worth of whatever's necessary at the time?
Is that kind of coverage even available?
I am fighting my own personal war on terror, the same war as millions of other Americans, in which the insurance companies are the terrorists and half of Congress appears to have developed a case of Nelsonian blindness! I am especially contemptuous of Democratic representatives who intend to vote "no" tomorrow; they should know better. They ran on behalf of a party that believes, or once believed, in the social contract: that the government must do its best to protect its people, or else that government is invalid and must be replaced. They ignore this social contract because they believe we are too complacent to throw them out.
This November, let's not be complacent. Let's find representatives who really do have our best interests in mind and at heart. Let's enforce the ideals of the Founders: truly representative government. Civil rights for all (though I daresay we include more in that "all" than they did). Life, liberty, and happiness -- a life not lived in fear, a life free of bureaucratic fetters, a life in which our good health is not just a perk or a luxury.