(no subject)
A few days ago, I got the details on my friend Geoff's death. He had been in the hospital with diabetes complications. He had been in the ICU and needed to stay there...but he didn't have health insurance, and so he was discharged. He died as soon as he got home. Geoff had a good job and good income, but his diabetes precluded him from health coverage, and his lack of coverage kept him from getting the care that could have saved his life.
I also can't get health insurance. It's just plain not available to me. Because I have been diagnosed with depression, no policy will cover me. They won't even take me on with the exception that my depression is a pre-existing and therefore not covered condition. The Affordable Health Care Act doesn't fully take effect until 2014, assuming the righties in government don't get their way and overturn it before then. These changes cannot come soon enough. I can afford my depression meds and the occasional therapy visit. I would not be able to afford something else -- a broken bone or other injury, some kind of illness that requires a doctor's visit and expensive prescriptions, or FSM forbid something even more serious. For now, I am lucky that I am able to afford the healthcare I need. But I don't have the security of knowing I'll be okay if I ever need more, and I have the gut wrenching agony of knowing my friend is gone because of the greed in the American healthcare system. You don't have to be a socialist to see that there's a huge problem with health insurance as big business. Treatable illnesses are death sentences to too many people in this country, all because insurance is too hard to get, and hospitals are run for profit. My depression went untreated for as long as it did because I knew as soon as I mentioned it to a doctor, that would be the end of my insurance eligibility, and it was. First my premiums shot through the roof and then I just plain couldn't get coverage. This system literally kills people.
If this were the only issue I agreed with Obama on, it would be enough to get me to vote for him. But I also believe that women should make equal pay for equal work. I believe consenting adults should be allowed to marry and have families with the partners of their choosing, and those families should have the same legal protections as every XX + XY household has. I think all people deserve education, and that government should never, ever try to stifle science (climate change, evolution, stem cell research, sex education...).
I think that no matter which way the electoral votes add up, it is depressing that around half the voting population disagrees with me on the above issues. I can sort of understand if you are in the miniscule sliver of the population that gets rich off of the right-wing policies (AND you have very little conscience or empathy for others), but I really and truly do not see the benefit, personally or society-wide, to supporting the right's agenda. To stifling human rights, access to education and health care, and to promoting war...it just doesn't make sense to me, and it makes me sad that it makes sense to anyone.
I also can't get health insurance. It's just plain not available to me. Because I have been diagnosed with depression, no policy will cover me. They won't even take me on with the exception that my depression is a pre-existing and therefore not covered condition. The Affordable Health Care Act doesn't fully take effect until 2014, assuming the righties in government don't get their way and overturn it before then. These changes cannot come soon enough. I can afford my depression meds and the occasional therapy visit. I would not be able to afford something else -- a broken bone or other injury, some kind of illness that requires a doctor's visit and expensive prescriptions, or FSM forbid something even more serious. For now, I am lucky that I am able to afford the healthcare I need. But I don't have the security of knowing I'll be okay if I ever need more, and I have the gut wrenching agony of knowing my friend is gone because of the greed in the American healthcare system. You don't have to be a socialist to see that there's a huge problem with health insurance as big business. Treatable illnesses are death sentences to too many people in this country, all because insurance is too hard to get, and hospitals are run for profit. My depression went untreated for as long as it did because I knew as soon as I mentioned it to a doctor, that would be the end of my insurance eligibility, and it was. First my premiums shot through the roof and then I just plain couldn't get coverage. This system literally kills people.
If this were the only issue I agreed with Obama on, it would be enough to get me to vote for him. But I also believe that women should make equal pay for equal work. I believe consenting adults should be allowed to marry and have families with the partners of their choosing, and those families should have the same legal protections as every XX + XY household has. I think all people deserve education, and that government should never, ever try to stifle science (climate change, evolution, stem cell research, sex education...).
I think that no matter which way the electoral votes add up, it is depressing that around half the voting population disagrees with me on the above issues. I can sort of understand if you are in the miniscule sliver of the population that gets rich off of the right-wing policies (AND you have very little conscience or empathy for others), but I really and truly do not see the benefit, personally or society-wide, to supporting the right's agenda. To stifling human rights, access to education and health care, and to promoting war...it just doesn't make sense to me, and it makes me sad that it makes sense to anyone.