Healthcare, My Views

This was originally emailed to some, hence the reference to email.

I know we are all opinionated, come from different worlds, have different beliefs. Some of us have different needs. But, we are all human beings. None of you, who I have emailed this to are overtly hateful. Yet, I know some of you are either so afraid of politics or government intervention or personally afraid the current President of the United States is evil, you may be letting that overrule what you know is true: people need people; we all should have had the right to medical care.

The poor are not lesser human beings than those who are not poor. I have been both poor and quite well off – I was no different as one or the other. My mother lived at even greater extremes, going from quite well to do and living a privileged life to barely having enough food to go around. She was born in a generation that was more prone to not getting that all people deserved a chance. I am proud that she grew as a person and changed.

This is not about President Obama being great terrible or mediocre, but it is about someone pushing an issue that everyone has dilly dallied, danced, sidestepped. Who knows, he may do the same before it is over. But we can’t. I have no more right to great medical than any other human being on this earth – and if the government has to step in to see it begin, then that shows that we, collectively, have not bothered to get the job done.

It has been said that someone else will control your medical care… duh, someone else always has since insurance companies were in business, at least in my adult life. There were people at GTE with insurance that I worked with that had to fight the insurance company to pay for their daughter’s care — they fought ferociously — and they were not fighting government, they were fighting a large insurance company playing God with their daughter’s future well being. I remember how frustrated the father was… how much he worried about his daughter – and that is just one example.

I have witnessed so much anger and lack of empathy on the internet, people twittering and blogging. I am embarrassed on the one hand to say I am a human being; it is totally beyond my comprehension that one human being would not leap at the opportunity to finally offer another human being a chance at medical care. I know some of you have friends who have experienced poor care in a national healthcare system… just as I have known some who experienced poor care in the insurance system. It sucks. This system may not work, but it is a step.

I am proud, on the other that I have seen so many people who genuinely care about other people. If you or someone you know are wavering or so eaten up with anger or fear or self-contempt that you or they cannot put yourselves in others shoes, please, sit quietly and think about ALL the people you have known - you/they might just get it then.

Nearly, if not all, religions on this earth for centuries have a version of the Golden Rule as one of their tenants. I think some have forgotten it. Those of you who haven’t, thank you.

Thank you for listening.

Marcia McLees Bogaert