To Opponents of Healthcare

I thought like you until my beautiful young wife was stricken with a rare cancer which our existing health care system had misdiagnosed for five years until it was too late. We were in a managed health care plan and the doc was paid a flat fee for each patient for which he was PC physician. Since the tests that would have found her cancer were costly, he didn't find it until she was in terrible pain and the cancer had spread to many parts of her body. Thank God, we changed docs and the hemi-colectomy saved her life. The mets are still there. They couldn't get them all. Taking the primary slowed the disease, though. In order to control the incessant diarrhea, she must take meds costing $150K per year.

It is only because I have the insurance on which the reform is modeled that she still has the freedom to unleash her God given talents to do what she is called to do. Without that protection, our life would be periods of constant diarrhea ultimately resulting in dehydration to the point of collapse. Then, because we would by now be on welfare, the ambulance would take her to the ER where they would pump her full of fluids. After a few days in the hospital, they would cut her loose to begin the cycle over again. It would not be long until the bed sores, pneumonia, and all the bad stuff associated with being bed ridden would have taken her. Because of the insurance with the features all will soon have, we can pay for her palliative care and she manages her pain and symptoms. That enables her to work every day and pay taxes.

The simple fact is that insurance companies and disease currently have control over many people's lives. I can go on and on. If you are thinking the unthinkable, you are the one really advocating your own personal "death panel" and you are despicable.

All human life is precious. So many naive or ignorant people think that if you are a Stage IV cancer patient, you must go to a hospice and die, thereby relieving the rest of us from dealing with you, kind of like a leper in the Bible. A life of wonderful quality is possible after a catastrophic illness. Pain can be managed and a person can contribute to society far in excess of the cost of their care. Stephen Hawking is a wonderful example of that. I think he lives in the UK, whose health coverage is reviled by all you conservatives. And if you want to argue the Constitution, I believe that wonderful document guarantees us the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To me, that means the government has not only the right, but the responsibility, to foster a health care system in which people like my wife can live and make every attempt to be happy.

If you want to throw around "isms", Hitler's Nazism included the idea that those deemed inferior should be denied medical care and allowed to die.