Friends

On Saturday, November 7th, a near majority of the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The meaning of this event has been interpreted both as affirmation that health care reform is finally going to happen and as criticism that health care reform is still controversial even in its watered down forms.

As a result, partisan interests will argue their respective points. On one side, popular support has finally broken the barriers that lobbies have erected in legislative progress for decades. On the other, partisan leadership is forcing reform despite the reluctance of many representatives who know their constituents resist socialized health care.

Which of these arguments is truly more convincing? Can we really believe that a bill heavily compromised from the liberal agenda is partisan strong-arming? Can we believe that individual citizens really have more sway on their legislators than corporate and private interest lobbies which normally get what they want?

As one who prefers little to no institutional control over my private decisions, I can sympathize with libertarians and anarchists who argue that government involvement in health care is a further encroachment on individual liberty.

However, what has been understated is the encroachment of business interests on health care. As a result, many individuals who need treatment cannot obtain it, whether shut out by insurance denials, prohibitive costs, or concerns about litigation.

The argument has been framed up to this point as to what role government should have in health care. I hope we can recognize instead the role government has in reining in the control that untouchable private interests have over our very health. This expansion is an opening of liberty in health care, providing more choice and opportunity, rather than a restriction of it by bureaucratic incursion.

Insurance companies, health care facilities, and health care providers are already bureaucratic and prohibitive. They are also very inefficient. This legislation is a small step toward changing how we view health care, and while it is not perfect, it is essential to moving forward.

he has started this past week to pull himself to a standing position. very proud of himself and then he attempts to wave simultaneously and smile...sometimes that is just too much multi-tasking and we tumble...but he doesn't ever cry when he falls, inf act yesterday he pulled himself into and over the side of the activity garden 3x and laughs. such a very sweet disposition. he had chicken noodle soup & cheese potatoes for dinner last night...we moved him downstairs at about 10:30 or 11 and he woke up at 7 and had vomited in his pack n play everywhere...poor little thing!! i nursed him, aaron ran him a nice warm bubble bath and then we fed him lightly, oatmeal & toast. he seems to be feeling fine, maybe he just ate too much last night?? aaron ran to agri-trac and brought his little helper along, she LOVES to go w/her daddy. always wants to wear her work boots when shes doing "farm work".
she is making me laugh everyday!!

"Nuance. I have my ideas. I love my ideas. I bask in them, cling to them, noisily impose them. And then I move beyond my buble and they get wrecked. I grieve them. They really were beautiful, in their oblivious idealism, in their purity. Later I am grateful: I see that the intention behind them was good, the intention remains--but it has been stretched in its applications. It's a little humbler, a wee bit more generous. Life, it seems, pushes me ever wider, deeper, in an ongoing struggle to accommodate things I never imagined existed."

From LOYAL TO THE SKY, by Marisa Handler