Taking a Break to Rejuvinate

What an incredible year.  The health care reform bill passed.  It seems like yesterday when I began reading through H.R. 3200, the Health Services Act, the pages of Health Insurance Quarterly Financial reports, was laid off, grieved for the death of my father.  I took some time recently to read over the many articles I wrote, and I was rather stunned.

I really cannot pin down the exact moment that my interest in health care grew to be such a passion.  My father's death probably had the most to do with it.  The breast cancer diagnoses for my mother added fuel to the fire.  Losing my job, and having my insurance rates jacked up certainly provoked me into night upon night of research.  Still, I have always been preoccupied with health care.

My love hate relationship with insurance goes way back possibly to my earliest weeks of childhood when a doctor diagnosed me with severe hip deformity. I suspect my parents divorce may have been in part due to financial struggles related to my health issues and those of my sister born one year later with anacephally.   My mother carried her for ten months only to watch her die two hours after her birth.  I remember the numerous and loud discussions over the phone as my parents haggled over health insurance coverage for my brother and I.  I remember a lot of struggles dealing with money in our household.  I digress.  Needless to say, I appreciate the challenges faced by lower and middle class Americans.

I have spent an enormous amount of time buried in thomas.gov, the U.S. and Alaska Departments of Health and Human Services, Federal Tax codes, and much, much more.  The next step in America's effort to transform health care is just around the corner, and there will be a need for more research, more fact checking, more letter writing and phone calling.  The health insurance companies have already started messing with people's premiums in an attempt to panic people into protesting further health reform.  There is a good chance that many Americans may soon find themselves being denied more coverage than ever before as insurance put the screws to us, and challenge the new laws until 2014, when the most significant changes will take place.  We will need to stand firm, and stand up for our rights as consumers.

I need to rest for a while.  Probably not for very long.  Time waits for no one, and the issues won't go away.  I doubt President Obama or his wife get much of a break, but I am just a woman, living on my own means, and I am plumb wore out.  I hope to return well rested and full of sauce. I don't know if anyone reads this blog, but if so, I appreciate the time you've taken to do so.  The picture I have included was taken just after the 2009 Inauguration of President Obama.  The people you see of every race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, etc are crowded inside the National Aerospace Museum.  I spent so many wonderful years there as a child.  I have never experienced moments such as I did in Washington that day.  I hope to be able to write a book about that day.  I still miss my dad, and it still hurts, but I still dream.

As my mother says, "See you in the morning."