I am an American citizen.
I live abroad.
Why?
Two words: Health Care.
I have a one-year old son and the quality of life I can provide for him is just way better here at present - and a huge part of that quality of life is having no fears or worries about his access to the best medical care. (Not to mention the labour and delivery and follow-up care for he and my wife last year.)
And for the record, this has little to do with the economic meltdown. We decided to make our home outside the States even before that axe began to fall.
Speaking more to my own personal situation, I can say forthrightly that I chose to come here instead of moving us to the U.S., because my life was pretty much destroyed by the American "Health Non-Care" system. I've managed to rebuild I think. But it has been despite the U.S. system, and having no other real option but to leave it behind. One might think that being a citizen and a public service-minded person like myself, that wouldn't be the case. But in a place where lobbyists and insurance companies make billions because their main incentive is precisely to be a controlling entity coming between people and caregivers, not a chance.
There should never be anyone standing between a person and his/her caregiver.
If I add up the costs and peace of mind I save being here instead of the States, it's almost impossible to imagine coming back. Still, I admit I would very much like to try, at least for a few years. You know, take my boy to a baseball game, things like that. Then think about where we want to be later on as he gets older...
But I don't have that option. And I had to write to you, because honestly, you're making it even harder to think it could ever be possible. And I really was expecting the opposite when I sent in my absentee ballot last November.
I'm an artist, but instead of focusing on my own career, I devoted the last ten years to providing a creative learning experience to under-served youth in the States. With the recent flaming nose-dive of the house of cards formerly known as the U.S. economy, I now have little to show for those years of public service except the satisfaction that I did something worthwhile for others, recorded in the form of the public art we made together.
Before all that though, I had a stroke, at the age of 25, seventeen years ago. At the time, I was the textbook image of a starving artist.
Frankly, my lack of insurance cost me a basic level of care - and understanding of my situation - and the result was that I floundered mightily in my efforts to recover, physically and emotionally, until the day 7 years later that I was given the privilege of using my talents to help others, and began a healing and growing and learning process that should not have waited so long to begin. A process I likely would have been helped with, had I had access to quality doctors and care -- and had doctors and nurses not been so burdened by the current system that they often are forced to take a production-line and cover-your-ass approach in how they care for patients under the current "privately controlled" bureaucracy. (One that makes the old Soviet bureaucracy look like a model of efficiency.)
Anyway, as anyone who has worked with youth, or had their own, knows (to the point of cliche') - most kids have a pretty well developed bullshit detector. And well, FauxNews aside, many of us adults share that sensibility. It's why many who had become skeptical to the point of apathy were convinced/moved/inspired and went out and voted for you.
It's also why alarms are going off all over the world at the news of some of your words and deeds, barely a few months into your first historic term as President.
Something smells.
Is it the Iraq pullout? Well, despite your elegant tap-dancing, many like myself are willing to concede that it may be a longer political process than we hoped/thought, considering the damage already done before you took over. But Afghanistan, while even murkier in many respects, is harder to understand as you send more troops when sending more troops to Afghanistan was the main dagger in the heart of the former Soviet bear. That is, unless your goal is to see the U.S. end up in pieces like the U.S.S.R did. (Duly noted that it's not a real apples-to-apples comparison here, but the point still works I think.)
As for war crimes committed by our government, well it's simple: you have a duty and not a choice. If you fail in it, your legacy will place you among other appeasers and apologists of war criminals. Not exactly what I would call an attractive option for an historic presidency. However, again, some like myself are willing to go along for the circuitous ride that may be necessary politically, so long as at the end of the day you emphatically uphold our obligations to human rights, history, and the future of democracy - by seeing to it, however difficult it is, that we prosecute and hold accountable under the law those who were in fact responsible.
But I digress. This is about health care.
When you say we have an historical tradition regarding our current system, you're right. But we also have an historical tradition of racism in this country, and I'm not swallowing that you'd argue how MLK and others shouldn't have "disrupted" the system in efforts to combat racism and effect a systemic change when systemic change is what was called for. Am I comparing the civil rights issue to health care? Well, no. I don't have the authority to do so - because they in fact are the same issue, not two separate ones that might be compared. Health care is not a privilege. It is a right - a Civil Right. Saying that we can't risk disruption of the system to ensure access to that right is like telling Rosa Parks that you can appreciate what she's trying to do, but she needs to shut up and get to the back of the bus because otherwise the whole system would have to be disrupted in order to address the problems her actions helped illuminate. Just thinking about this image, as I listen to the endless excuses for the tragedy that is American Health Care, gets me so pissed off and upset I want to vomit.
Indeed, disruption is precisely what is needed in the current scam that is the U.S. Health Non-Care System. Major disruption. The only people against it are those who profit from the status quo. You weren't elected to kiss their ass. You were elected by people like me who believed you meant it when you said you were prepared to do what it took to bring CHANGE.
I, and millions like me aren't stupid Mr. President. Take us for granted, play us for chumps, and you will lose in the long run - not only because you might actually end up with the dubious honor of pissing away a major majority for the Dems even at a time when the GOP barely even exists and is likely to place third in one of the next few U.S. Presidential elections. But also because history will record your actions, and inactions, including any blunders so huge as to take the side of Insurance companies over the needs of the people - and our very future's need as well - for real change. Change you promised. Promises from which you are obviously twisting and spinning right now to try to dilute expectations.
What it looks like to us Mr. President, is you are trying too hard to find consensus with people who are essentially extremists. You are not utilizing your power to effect change, because you feel some need to work with certain major players in our current system. You are heeding counsel of too many who frankly are all about the status quo, and only want change to the extent it may profit them.
I advise, on an issue like health care for instance, that you heed the words of the people who put you in office and can see to it that you are not elected to a second chance... the people want a national health care system paid for by their taxes and delivered via the private sector. The "experts" whom have the highest authority in this matter, the doctors and nurses, overwhelmingly agree.
If you ignore them and choose to listen to the counsel that favors the big bad Insurance sector, you fail - you fail as president, as change agent, and you fail the people.
My and many other bullshit detectors are ringing loud and clear Mr. President. Don't let your cavalcade of insulating secretaries and cabinet members and others - at the urging of lobbyists - prevent you from hearing them.
I'd like to have the option of letting my boy live in America. If you yield and do not bring about a truly revolutionary change to U.S. health care in the form of "single payer" or national health care or however you want to call it, I will not have that option.
And you can bet your ass that I won't be going through the effort of casting my ballot come November 2012, or perhaps even 2010... except and unless someone else is on the ballot who has shown the courage to fight for this while you waxed spin-poetic about not disrupting a system that is already more disruptive to the lives of more Americans than any other. I mean, when almost half of U.S. bankruptcies filed by individuals and families are due to medical costs, I'd say that's pretty damned disruptive.
Oh, and if you take the side of the Insurance companies using the excuse that they say they will voluntarily cut 2 trillion in costs, when the real alternative of National Health Care would cut 4 trillion, we'll be left with no other choice but to believe one of two things about you: 1) you're either not as smart as we thought, or as you think; or 2) you're as dishonest and tainted as any other and all the glorious speechmaking about Change was pure lies;
Or, ok, maybe in a way both could be true.
Sorry if this letter seems a bit brusque... but this isn't a playground. This is my life, my son's future, my fellow human beings' future we're talking about here.
I'd love nothing more than to be proven by you to have been a total hyperventilating liberal over-reacting to your sly ways. I'll be as apologetic as I can be, and go back to devoting myself to public service, should you do so.
First though, you got some business to tend to. 'Cause right now, you're spinning, lobbyists are winning, while me and most Americans are being asked to slowly roll over and "trust" you.
Earn it.
[Note: Rather than paste them inline, I am adding here the links for the reference I used in making some of the data-related comments, such as the 2 trillion vs. 4 trillion savings estimate, and the amount of bankruptices caused by medical problems. They were all contained in the Moyers episode currently diaried and rec-listed here. And the Moyers clips themselves are here and here. The latter is the portion where most of my references were taken from.]