I know I am preaching to the choir here but we need single payer health care. Period!
Almost to this day three years ago my cousin Lori was at a prayer meeting. Almost 8 months pregnant. She fell over and stopped breathing. For nine minutes. If her minister had not been a medic in the Army, we are sure she and her child would have died. They both survived. But at grave costs. She could not go back to work as a school teacher. Medical bills have almost bankrupted them.
She still has medical issues as does her son which I fear will be massive as he gets older. Although a hospital in her little rural town, she drives all the way over to me, 4+ hours to Barnes in St. Louis. The drive sucks. But being able to go to one of the best hospitals in the world doesn't suck.
Last week she was in so much pain. Felt her heart could stop again. Went to the local hospital. They sent her test results to her doc at Barnes who said get in an ambulance and get here NOW!. She joked to me, and in her situation I'd think a sense of humor is key, that is a bill they don't want to open. I mean what does a 4+ hour ambulance trip cost in 2018?
Barnes basically told her there was nothing wrong with her they could find. Gave her a name of a doctor to call. Well he won't take Medicaid, she can't even get an appointment. She is crawling out of bed to care for her child and still do some tutoring to bing in some income.
I then told her something I told myself I would never say to her. That she and Nate (her husband) were proud to vote for Trump. You fucked up. I asked her how that was working out. That I don't know what she thinks about my far left political leanings, we know we are on opposite ends, and just don't talk about it. But people on my side want to help her. We want her to be paid more when she was a teacher. I mean they closed and sold the primary school you used to teach at, that isn't normal!
We want health care for all. Health care is a right IMHO, like your right to attend a church that thinks they can pray away your health issues. And as I've told you as an atheist I'd march shoulder to shoulder with you for your right to attend any church you want. Just like I'd hope if the government came at me for believing this or that they didn't agree with you'd stand with me.
You might not be pro-choice. Against any regulations of guns, but you have your guns in a safe me nor your child could get into. Heaven forbid we want other gun owners to be as responsible as you and Nate.
We are trying really hard to help you. Really hard but folks like you that need said help, vote for fucking Trump. That you are in a lower tax bracket. We want to give you a huge tax cut and folks like me and my parents that have some money should pay more. Much more to offset you having medical care and support.
I think this might have hurt not helped my relationship with Lori. We were not always close. She knew my views and felt I would dislike her. I explained not the case. It takes all kinds of people to make the world go around. You don't have to think the way I think for me to like you. I just ask you are honest. I was maybe more honest with her, or at least as I see it, but felt it was something that needed to be said.