Health Care

I posted this message on a newspaper blog. I thought I would share it here, otherwise, it will get lost in cyberspace.

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For those who have not read the plan (Affordable Care Plan), it can be found at: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr3590/text. It is 1000 pages but it is searchable if you copy the Plan into a Word document where you can search for specific sections. You might find that the scarey monsters we have been told to fear the most just aren't there.

The Plan provides for supplemental health insurance for the disabled under 65, which the state of Idaho does not provide. My 28 year old daughter passed away in October. This alone would have been beneficial for her. And if Idaho had this provision, I would have made SURE she had it, no matter what else I would have done without. She was that important to me.

You see, she was a brittle Type I diabetic since she was 6. She had no health care coverage for years. She could not get on Medicaid because she was not pregnant, a single mom, or just out of jail. For Medicaid, she had to suffer a medically unexplained brain anoxic injury.

She couldn't get health insurance either because of her diabetes. I bought her diabetic supplies out of Canada because I could get them for about 1/2 the cost of the USA.

It took us 37 months to get her on SSD to get medical help with her diabetes. We had to prove she was diabetic. Yet, had she been "directionally challenged" or "couldn't stand crowds", she would have been accepted in less than six months.

And even once she got on Medicare, the better doctors wouldn't see her. They wanted insurance. One doctor told me he didn't have to take care of people "like her". Shame on him!

Search the Plan and you won't find the dreaded IRS enforcement clause. You won't find death panels. You see, those already exist. They started calling them "bioethics" committees 30 years ago and they began under the beloved Reagan years.

The Plan has many good things, but for those who refuse to read it, please do not accept the free annual physicals. No one is forcing you to. Please do not put your children under the age of 26 on your insurance. No one is forcing you to. But, those are really good ideas. I support them, just as I support this Plan for all of us.

If you want to read the good news of where many of the ideas for this plan originated, then read the 1990 Pepper Commission report. Available: http://www.allhealth.org/publications/Uninsured/Pepper_Commission_Final_Report_Executive_Summary_72.pdf

I saw health care from the underbelly side in the months of my daughter's illness. The system has been broken for years and we keep wanting to keep the blinders on. Many in society must like being led around by the mentally blind because they refuse to educate themselves.

Read more: http://magicvalley.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letter-to-the-editor-supreme-court-should-uphold-reform/article_f1946ed8-7895-11e1-815d-001871e3ce6c.html?mode=comments#ixzz1qUNfvfMq