Reform

Health care reform is in the news. It's an ongoing topic, has been for months, and is polarizing. I've written about this before so I won't rehash the details, but I do have to say two things:

1. Many people are under the perception that if you are uninsured and go to a hospital that the hospital has to treat you. That is not true in practice. Twice I took my suicidal son to an emergency room and they weighed him, took his blood pressure, and his temperature. Then we waited in a waiting room for two hours so they could hand us a piece of paper that referred us to agencies we had exhausted months prior. That is how our hospitals "treated" my son. Six weeks later he was dead.

2. Others think that all Americans already have access to health care. This is also not true. As a teen, Colby was on a state insurance plan that I paid for because I was self-employed. Then that program was shut down due to lack of state funding. Because Colby had existing and extensive mental illness diagnoses, no other insurance program would cover him. By the time he was homeless and qualified for Medicaid, he was so paranoid I could not get him to a doctor.

I do not understand why all Americans cannot have access to health care. I believe that if Colby had medical care that there is a chance he would be here today. There is a chance that he could have led a productive life and fulfilled his dream of making the world a better place. There is a chance that I would someday have grandchildren. There is a chance that I would not have to grow old without any family.

All I ask our lawmakers in Washington is that whatever deal they strike, whatever language they finalize, whatever clauses they add, the end result is that no other American parent will suffer the anguish of not being able to get his or her son or daughter the medical attention they need.