I'm infuriated

Okay... I never, ever make political posts. I never comment on others. I never talk about politics because I will be the first to admit that I am not that knowledgeable and I only have strong opinions about a couple of things that play a role in my personal life. Not to mention I hate the backlash that comes from politics -- and I please ask that if you choose to make a comment on this you keep it clean and nice. You are very much entitled to your opinion, but please don't try to sway me from my own. I know that my opinion won't sway yours and I'm not trying to push my opinion upon you. But I wanted to share this because it struck such a cord within me...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/mitt-romney-health-insurance_n_1957419.html

I am very, very angered by Romney's comment. Not only am I angered, but I am infuriated and I take it quite personally, as do many of my friends with chronic and terminal illnesses.

Firstly, people die every day because they do not have insurance. I have seen and heard it all, and that is the honest truth. What about those needing life saving surgeries that doctors won't perform because the patient doesn't have insurance? What about those needing transplants in order to live another day who don't have insurance and can't afford it? What about those who NEED, medication to keep them alive but don't have the insurance or money to afford them? They don't get these things handed to them. They can't just go to the ER, as he seems to think, and ask for medications that are going to keep them alive. He gives example to a heart-attack patient. Sure they may be able to get treated for that heart attack for a couple of days, but what about the surgery that may need to follow? What about the rest of that patients life on blood thinners to keep it from happening again? What about the long term care that he doesn't seem to mention? Who pays for that????

I'm going to put this into a very personal context for a minute. If my husband did not have the insurance that he did when he was alive, he wouldn't have been living as long as he did. He was very, very LUCKY that he was able to stay on his moms insurance until he was 26, plus get covered by medicaid. Had he not been able to stay on his moms insurance, we would have been stuck with ungodly medical bills that there would have been no way we would have been able to pay them. And I would most likely be declaring medical bankruptcy at 21 years old. Last year alone, he was EASILY over a million dollar patient. And that is NO exaggeration. Had he not had insurance. There would have been no future for him. There would have been no option of a transplant for him. He would have died much sooner. (that may have been poorly worded, but I hope you got the point)

And what about those with chronic conditions? People like me who, if not on maintenance medications, who can become violently ill and cannot function without these thousand dollar medications? When medications like this aren't available to us because of the sad fact that we don't have, and cannot obtain medical insurance, and we come to be incredibly ill, we are living a life that is not worth living.

Not to mention those of us with these health conditions get discriminated against constantly. Frankly I am completely sick of it. We are denied life saving meds, procedures, surgeries. We are denied medical insurance, forced to pay astronomical premiums because we are sick, or we are forced to pay for our insurance but cannot use it for a year. If this isn't discrimination I don't know what is.

Sorry if this hits someone the wrong way. I don't believe I'm missing the point here with any of this. This may just be one issue out of many, but it's something I feel very strongly about. I can't even imagine what will happen if "Obamacare" is overruled. I am so, so SICK of our healthcare system changing. It was a MESS when Spence and I were dealing with it with his medications. Every single hospitalization, clinic visit, and trip to the pharmacy was dreaded because there was always some new loophole we had to jump through because things were changing back and forth. I don't want that to happen again. So far, Obamacare has made things so much better for me, and it made things a lot better for Spencer.

I almost feel as if one side wants to overrule it "just because". That absolutely no one has what is better for America in the back, or front, of their minds. No one thinks about the impact it's having on people right now. They just want to be the ones who are "right". And it angers me.

I don't know what's best for our country. I don't know what's best down the line. I am no expert on any of this and I would be the last to tell you what's "best". But I do know what is working for me and for my family right now. I do know what will be good for me and my family within the next 5 years. And that is what is currently in place.