Guaranteed Healthcare

I have two children with type-1 diabetes, and a third at-risk. My wife and I paid health insurance premiums all our working lives without asking for a cent. Now our insurance won't cover a new life-saving therapy for people with type-1 diabetes.

It's called Continuous Glucose Monitoring, and for people who have the will, it's a way to conquer the inevitable complications of uncontrolled diabetes, like blindness, neuropathy, and kidney failure. We paid for my daughter's sensor, and it looks like we'll be paying for her supplies. If we can convince our son to use this therapy, it will be like a $12,000/year paycut.

No big deal if you are a big fat cat like Cheney, Bush, and their pals. For us it's too much to swallow, and I don't know where we'll get the money if all three are struck by this disease. Strangely, neither my wife nor I have type-1, and it is not rampant in our families either.

So-called conservative pundits seem to think that national health care is a frivolity, equivalent to getting a haircut, e.g. Glenn McCoy's clueless and demeaning cartoon in the New York Times this week. But in the same breath these folks will brag that we're the most powerful and richest nation on earth. When various charities call me on the phone begging for money, I tell them to call the CEO of Anthem. He's got millions, and it came from our pockets! If we are the richest nation on earth, we can certainly afford basic healthcare - and the same healthcare -for everybody.