Where I stand (on my feet).

[Mythsaje]

Hey, all. Some of you will remember my old posts about my youth--traveling up and down the West Coast by thumb and heel, and all the other crazy stuff I did. And I'd also post stuff about my newest WIP (Work In Progress). I know some of you have bought a few of my novels and I can't thank you enough for that. DU has been one place I can trust to consistently drive people to my website and THAT'S a damn cool thing too. I've got a total of seven books out now, all of them in print, and I just finished another one my wife is currently editing before I submit to my publisher. It's a lesbian love story (and, no, not like that). At the moment the market's really opening up for stuff like that and it's a story I've long wanted to explore involving a relationship between two of my favorite characters. It's actually a prequel of sorts, because in earlier novels they're already a couple. I just wanted to tell the story of how they got together.

Anyway...

Lately I've been hammering the thing on healthcare because I think it's a big issue. A few years back a co-worker and one of the nicest people I've known ended up with a $100,000 medical bill because her son came down with a particularly nasty stomach virus that ulcerated his intestines. She had insurance, but not nearly enough. I think it's reprehensible that anyone would think it right she be driven that deeply in debt because of something so far out of her control.

I'm fortunate enough to have decent health insurance, but it grieves me to think of all the people who don't and the hardships this puts on them, and it infuriates me that their health and welfare is being left in the hands of people for whom profit is more important than human dignity.

My own issues with insurance companies in general goes back to the early days of mandatory auto insurance. Oh, I know it's a good idea, but something told me that handing the insurance companies such a cash cow would come back to haunt us in the end. It made them more powerful than they already were, which set off every warning bell I have. A friend of mine once remarked that HE wanted to start an insurance company because he thought it was the most beautiful scam ever created (being religious, he obviously didn't consider the possibility that it was only the SECOND most beautiful scam ever imagined).

I know a lot of people don't get why we're so annoyed about the current situation because we see no way for people to get out from under the monolithic weight of the for-profit insurance industry. Many of the leading proponents of a single-payer system are medical professionals and yet their testimony is not only ignored, but actively barred. This isn't anything we signed up for when we went to the polls last year.

We're really balanced on a knife edge at the moment, and that's a serious problem. If it goes one way, we'll be a little better off than we were. If it goes the other, on the other hand, we'll be seriously screwed. I mean, really? Mandatory health insurance? Can people NOT see how that could go bad in a hurry? Even better, how about talk of taxing health benefits as income? Now there's a lovely idea guaranteed to fuck people senseless. They're trying to be responsible and get the most insurance they can afford and the politicos are talking about penalizing them for it. How sweet. Think they'll throw in a box of chocolates?

So, yeah, this is a major hot button issue for me. I've long believed that single-payer was the way to go in this country, and the only way to give the people a real break for a change.

So... that's my big issue at the moment, beyond anything Obama himself is doing. That's why I'm not all over him about the rest of the stuff. Yet. I'll give him time to settle in before making any noise. Congress, on the other hand, is another matter. They've been in charge for a few years now, having only grown their majority last election season. And yet they don't seem to be interested in doing anything moderately progressive if they can possibly help it.

Enough said. This is my big cause and that's why.