If you don't like political posts, now is the time to click away. I generally don't like them either, but sometimes you just have to say what you have to say.
And I have something to say.
I've had it up to my eyeballs with people arguing that the health care system is fine just the way it is. Frankly, I don't know what the right answer is, what exactly needs to happen to improve the situation, or what the best way to implement changes is, I just know it needs to happen. Something needs to happen.
I can choose to forget the price we personally have paid for the fact that the system has been broken for years (forever, perhaps?). We're likely still paying on credit card debt from a middle-of-the-night asthma attack that sent Mr. Husband to the ER years ago, while he was in college and without insurance. It's OK; we'll get by still paying that bill. I can ignore the two inch circular scar on the inside of my right ankle, a result of a childhood injury that was never addressed because my parents didn't have insurance and couldn't pay to take a kid to the ER for (what I now know was) a broken bone and severe contusions. I can cover that reminder with a sock. I can even pretend that I don't know just how much money insurance companies are making, and about how they are now using those profits to spread lies and propaganda, disguised as political posturing.
What I can't ignore is that which is not here.
My mom.
If you've been around for a while, you know she died of breast cancer when I was 19. What you don't know is that it was her own fault. She knew. She knew she had breast cancer, and she chose to do nothing about it until it was far too late.
When you don't have insurance and you don't have money, there are some medical procedures that are still relatively easy to come by at no cost. Mammograms are on that list. When she found a lump, she went to a free screening and was told that it was likely a problem, and that she needed to follow up with a physician.
But she didn't have insurance. She also didn't have the money to pay for care out of her pocket.
So, she did what she thought was right. She felt that it would be stealing to go to the doctor knowing that she couldn't pay. She didn't want to clog a physician's schedule with a non-paying customer when others could pay. She didn't want to depend on public assistance. She didn't want to take money out of your pocket.
She assigned a price to her life and decided her life was worth less than that of someone with insurance.
Sure, it was her fault she died at the age of 45. It was absolutely her responsibility to take care of herself first and then worry about the ramifications later.
But why should she have ever been in the position to have to make that decision?