I Can Live Without a Public Option

I can live without a public option. I can’t live without health care reform. I understand the argument for a strong public option. A government-run insurance plan wouldn’t have the high overhead that private plans do. The American public’s need for quality health insurance that can’t be denied if you have a pre-existing condition or cancelled if you get sick is not being met in our current system and far too many are going without health insurance and indeed, health care.

A public plan, crafted in Congress and based on the needs of consumers, not the bottom line of for-profit insurance companies, has the potential to transform our health care system in ways we probably cannot imagine right now.

But the reality is that change is hard and I don’t want a repeat of the Clinton health care debacle. I am willing to settle for some health care reform, even without a public option, rather than no reform at all. I want as many people to have health insurance as possible. It’s especially important for women.

Seventeen million women have no health insurance at all. Millions more are underinsured. They are not just statistics. In the past three weeks alone, I have learned that two friends of mine are currently without health insurance. One is a young woman in her twenties who changed jobs over the summer. She is currently without health insurance as her old policy ran out and the new policy doesn’t kick in for another month.

My other friend is a married mother of two who owns a small business that employs half a dozen people. Her husband works full-time but doesn’t get insurance through his job and she can’t afford to provide insurance for herself or her employees.

There are also nearly ten million women on Medicaid. As some of you know, I am one of those women. I talk about it a lot because Medicaid is a government-run insurance program (aka Socialized Medicine) and I think it’s important to put a human face on what this Evil Descent Into Fascism really looks like.

Beyond all the rhetoric, what’s really important is this: Without health insurance, you can’t get health care. Going without health care? That’s playing Russian roulette. Just ask Heather Sherba, who was injured in the recent Pittsburgh gym shooting. A recent college graduate, Ms. Sherba thought she was healthy enough to go without health insurance until she found a job.

Um… yeah.

This might be naïve, but I don’t honestly care how we achieve health care reform as long as everyone gets quality, affordable health insurance. If a co-op works, fine. If the Wyden-Bennett plan works, fine. If the public option works, I’ll be thrilled

Progressives, please find a way to do this. It’s a life and death thing for people like me and so many others.

Don’t screw it up.