Ten days ago, I woke up unable to breathe normally after only a minimum of exertion, and knew things were not looking good. I needed to stop and catch my breath for about ten minutes after taking only about ten steps, or so. The night before, I was feeling fairly well, but nowhere near as bad as I was feeling last Friday morning. After taking about an hour to go up one flight of steps, I surrendered to the inevitable and asked my wife to drop me off at the emergency room of the nearby hospital to get checked out. What I thought was just a bad case of bronchitis turned out to be much nastier -- double pneumonia AND blood clots in the lungs.
Join me under the orange lung dropping to use my personal story as an illustration as to why I am supporting Democrats in this election.
I am a middle-aged, upper-middle class, suburban white male, who has worked almost exclusively within the tech sector (and is where I am currently at when I am eventually cleared for work some time next week). I mention this only to draw attention to the foundation laid many years prior to this episode which allowed my severe health scare to be put behind me with little negative consequence -- due to the existence of Federal Financial Aid at the time I was finishing High School, I was able to obtain a decent education which then allowed me to work up to higher paying jobs, as well as having a position which has rather good health care coverage.
This same Federal Financial Aid was also available to a good number of other individuals, some of whom ended up becoming physicians, technicians, nurses and administrators of the hospital in which I spent the last week, or so. The Federal Government was also responsible for creating an environment for the hospital to exist where they could be reasonably assured that they would have their expenses covered were they to take on Medicare and/or Medicaid patients. Additionally, the Federal and State government regulations on the operation of hospitals and healthcare facilities has been straightforward enough to leave very little doubt in all parties minds' as to what is a safe environment for running (and being an employee of) an hospital.
I could wax eloquent about the wonderful individuals whose myriad skills crossed my path at just the right time to ensure that I did not fall through the cracks, but as I was going through the experience first-hand, I was constantly aware of just how fortunate I was to have access to first-rate health insurance coverage. The crock of shit thrown about by the Romney/Ryan team about emergency rooms covering all people just puts a slight veneer of truth over that turd sandwich -- yes, if I didn't have adequate health insurance at the time I went to the Emergency Room, I would have been treated; however, my time there would have been only long enough to be stabilized for forwarding to another facility, probably Cook County (I refuse to call it Stroger) Hospital, with far inferior facilities, equipment, staff and resources.
I haven't dug too deep into the details right now, but I am fairly certain that at least one portion of the PPACA may be responsible for ensuring that the care I received helped get me back on my feet in a rather short period of time. With it in place, though, I won't have to worry about pre-existing conditions biting me in the backside somewhere in the future. It will also be responsible for ensuring that more individuals have access to decent health coverage (would that it were Single-Payer, but that is not the direction I'm taking this diary), which will then ensure that hospitals and healthcare providers can have a better feel for their financial security when taking on new patients.
Bringing this narrative to a close, I have touched on only a few, but very serious reasons, why we should elect not only Barack Obama as President in the upcoming election next Tuesday, but also as many Democratic Senators and Representatives as possible, to ensure that the good things which were started in 2008 can be finished this time around without the Republican intransigence which has been part of Congress since the last Presidential Election was affirmed.
Please do all that you can to not only get out and vote, but also do what you can to ensure that other Democrats do so as well.