Health Care Reform

I just cannot take a back seat to this important issue being tossed around in Washington this week. I cannot be quiet and I cannot be happy if there is no public health care option. How is losing your home, going into bankruptcy or just dying ok JUST because you cannot afford health insurance? When did our great country become so ignorant to the needs of the many, the salt of the earth, those who worked hard most of their lives only to have most or all of their money and benefits yanked out from beneath them because they had the misfortune of losing their jobs. OR because they just don't make enough money to pay for a $700.00 and up, WAAAY up, a month insurance premium that may or may not cover everything if they get sick (and let's not forget about the chances of losing that health insurance because you DO actually get sick).

What about those people that have to pay upwards of hundreds of dollars a month for medication they HAVE to have to lead a normal life...there are too many of those to count.

What about the small businesses (and large) whose health care premiums have become their single biggest expense, close to payroll costs (ours is at $18,000 a year per employee and that number is certain to rise again in July of 2009, the dreaded renewal time)?

So IF we are lucky enough to have a public health care option, you know what? I will fight to be the first in line to sign up. I will encourage everyone I know to do the same. Only then will private insurers begin to compete. Then maybe, just maybe, America will find it's voice with our very own hybrid version of health care in this country...one that excludes not one citizen for ANY reason and one that stops using human beings as commodities.