Reason 1

Why I'm voting and walking and calling and writing for Obama/Warner/RhymesWithSeder. Part one of a series:

Health Care

We've spent the last few years paying for private insurance. And people, let me tell you, it's expensive. MM and I are on one policy and MS is on another. To keep our payments to a reasonable level, we agreed to $40 co-pays, which shocked the crap out of the receptionists at our GP and Pediatrician's offices.

Here I have to pause to let you know that MS is a bit older than I am. Even with us paying high co-pays and high premiums, getting private insurance for him was nearly impossible. One big benefit of working again is, well, benefits.

Health care coverage shouldn't be a crap shoot. Doctors appointments should not be luxuries available only to the lucky covered few. And there shouldn't be life-time maximums for coverage either. Remember when Annika was in danger of losing her insurance coverage a couple of years ago?

Our country pays more for health care coverage than any other country and we have fewer people covered than any of the other industrialized nations. That is a crime. Why can't we put all that expenditure into something that will cover everybody? Most of us who already pay into an insurance policy would never even notice the difference. It would put our businesses on an equal footing with those in countries with nationalized health care.

Now, there's a woman I work with who disagrees with me. She's voting for McCain because she doesn't feel the need to share more of the over $250K her family earns annually. Why should she carry the burden for the lazy asses who aren't working as hard? She pulled herself up, so can they. Yeah. Nice. I pointed out to her that if the burden were taken off of our employer to insure all of us, we might get paid more. No dice. Sigh. Updated: Kathy A. drew my attention to more McCain shenanigans. I HAVE to tell my coworker about this. Taxing employer benefits and reducing protections for all.

I just feel that I'm willing to pay more to make sure everybody is covered regardless of age or health status. I'm willing to pay more to make sure that no one has to choose between a doctor's visit and a meal, a dentist's visit and rent, a pair of glasses and a pair of shoes. I'm willing to pay more, but I'm also willing to bet that compared to what I was paying insuring myself privately, I'll be paying less.