From a long-time reader at
TPM:
Like everyone I have a sob-story to tell about health care. After telling it to countless liberals who oppose the Senate's health-care reform bill, I still haven't heard a good answer from them about why they can't support the Senate bill. They usually stop talking, or try to change the subject.
Maybe Raul Grijalva or Barney Frank or Anthony Weiner or Jerry Nadler have wrestled with this problem and I haven't seen it. Have you seen anything from them about this?
My story: My father is dying of Huntington's disease. Before he dies in 8 to 10 years, he will need anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and drugs that fight dementia and his tremors and convulsions. He'll need multiple brain scans and physical therapy sessions.
Current medical treatments can't save him, but they will give him a few more years before the slow death strips him of his memories, personality and control of his body.
There's a 50 percent chance the same slow motion death awaits me and each of my three siblings. If I ever lose my job I'll become uninsurable, permanently. My sister already lost her insurance.
That means whatever treatment is developed for Huntington's will be unavailable to us. There's simply no way we could afford it. Not only high tech gene therapies or other interventions, but the medications and treatments that exist now that would buy us enough time to see our kids' graduations or weddings, and would give them hope of not suffering their grandfather's fate.
There's a bill that would mean we'd never be rejected for health insurance or have it canceled. Health insurance that could ease our final years, or maybe even save us.
But liberals are refusing to support it....Read the rest of the "Sob-Story" at the link.
I expect that few people wanted the public option more than I. My choice for a plan within the realm of possibility is a Medicare-for-all-who-want-it health care bill. Those who are happy with their present insurance may keep it. Whoever wants to join Medicare can pay and receive their health insurance through Medicare. It appears this is not to be.
However, the members of the House of Representatives can sign on to the quite-imperfect Senate bill, and thus provide better coverage for a great many people. If the Senate bill is the only way to improve health care coverage for a number of people with pre-existing conditions and those who may be uninsurable because of existing conditions, should they lose their current insurance policy, then I say, "Go for it". What comes to mind is, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
