Dear Senator Arlen Spector,
My name is Blythe Wolber and I am twenty-one years old. I am writing to implore you to vote for President Obama’s health reform.
My entire family has always had quality health insurance because my parents are young nurses. Until recently, I never realized our country had a health care crisis. Now that I do, I am frightened by my generation’s future. I am going to graduate college in the spring and I know that I am likely going to have no insurance for several years. I know that if anything terrible happens, my parents may go bankrupt in order to help me. I know that if I develop a condition, I may not know about it for several years, giving it a chance to worsen until it becomes a terrible burden financially and physically.
More importantly, I am a part of a generation of people that assume we will get cancer at some point in our lives, an assumption that I consider reasonable. I feel like I learn about a new cancer-causing agent every few weeks-- teflon, vaseline, nutrasweet, bottled water, deodorant, hormones in milk, most cleaning substances. The list goes on forever. It will take a long time for us to track down everything that gives us cancer, even longer to make everyone know about it, and even longer to actually diminish the use of these things. After all, we’ve known about the effects of cigarettes for decades, yet at this moment we are still imposing new laws to diminish their effects on the public. That’s not even counting the sun, who’s presence every morning is partially beautiful and partially a daily reminder of the gloom it will be imposing on my near future.
The point is that if most of my generation gets cancer in the next twenty years, and nearly 20% of us have no insurance, that will be millions of people who have no way of catching their cancer early. They will go to the hospital when their symptoms are so overt and any doctor they see will know that they have no chance. Nevertheless, they will have to try and save these people using incredibly expensive procedures that won’t even work most of the time. The hospitals will then cost shift all the bills of the deceased to the people in the hospital who do have insurance. The insurance company will pay the bill but raise premiums to make up for their loss. When premiums raise, health care becomes more of a burden to people and almost more importantly, more healthy people refuse to enter the system because they don’t think they can afford it, thus taking money from the system and placing that burden on the sick-- a vicious, terrible cycle. That doesn’t even include the millions of people who’s health insurance won’t cover them when they get sick, an incredible scandal that makes me ashamed of my country.
I know that the death panel rumor was crazy and completely false, but I honestly believe that the reality is even more frightening. I would rather know that as a senior citizen I would have to defend my life in front of a panel, then live through my seemingly doomed near future that I just described. Plus, my generation is already going to have to live through the effects of global warming. Give us a chance.
I am positive that health reform will happen at some point. I see no other way for our nation to go on. Please help make this happen sooner than later. Please brighten my future and allow my nightmares to go back to alligators under my bed instead of my parents losing their health insurance.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Blythe Wolber
Also, if you didn't watch Obama's health reform congress speech... it was pretty great. Consider yourself urged.
1 comment:
Aaah his speech WAS great. I almost wrote a whole rant on Joe Wilson, but... I just let it go. I think it's healthier.
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