I enjoyed this article at Slate, and the New York Times editorial it references.

I'm especially glad to see this paragraph in the NYT piece:

WILL MY CARE SUFFER? Critics have raised the specter that health care will be "rationed" to save money. The truth is that health care is already rationed. No insurance, public or private, covers everything at any cost. That will not change any time soon.

Thank you!

It is amazing to me that this patent fact has gotten lost in all the recent scaremongering.

I'll admit that I probably have OK health insurance. It's not as good as what I grew up with when my father was a steelworker and his company had the full ride: you went into the doctor and showed your card and that was that. Now, I'm alright with the small stuff, like checkups, and probably covered with the big stuff, which hasn't happened. But it's the in between stuff --- you bruised a rib, you may need a crown on your tooth --- where the coverage, or the process of getting treatment or payment, doesn't cut it.

A few years ago, I did bruise a few ribs. Actually, I thought I'd broken them. How would I know? I was in a bike accident, and I was in some serious pain. I couldn't remember where I was supposed to go in such cases, so I called the number on the back of my card, but I couldn't get any answers from the automated system, and I was about two blocks from the campus infirmary, so I went there. The infirmary took pretty good care of me, but then I got a bill for $400 from the insurance company: they wouldn't pay because either I didn't go to the right place or the infirmary didn't enter the proper procedure codes on the forms. They wouldn't tell me which reason they were actually observing. I finally got it straightened out, but it took well over 6 months of me calling and trying to get my insurance company to talk with the infirmary so the right codes could go into the billing system. I was glad it wasn't more serious.

Reading the Slate article, I have a feeling I'm very lucky that I didn't have anything more serious to worry over, and I hope it stays that way.

But for everyone else who struggles with sudden or chronic illness or anyone who just needs some help, I hope we pass reform with a public option and some serious reform of insurance and medical billing practices.

What worries me most is that this is not up to Obama, or even us. It's up to 538 people in Washington, and they seem to keep doing what they do.

Someone one said "Do what you're good at."

Someone else said, "Be better."

Let's be better. Or at least well.