Democrat or Not, Why You Should Wear Black Now

My father is a true Texas Republican -- so much so that he would cringe at me sharing his political beliefs so publicly as it is his God-given right to vote privately. He's not one of those "tea bag" Republicans or "birthers" or any other kind of recently fabricated and over-publicized zealot. He's just a hardworking, intelligent man who happens to be conservative. As a tree-hugging, latte-sipping liberal myself, he's the reason Obama's "Red America, Blue America" speech resonated so loudly with me in 2004.

We disagree on, well, just about everything politically and we've actually had a pretty spirited debate on the merits of Ted Kennedy as a Senator. Here's where we can agree -- health care reform is not a red state issue or a blue state issue. But my God it is an American issue.

I'll save you the details of my family's health care story. It's similar to one that you've heard any number of times before if you've chosen to pay attention. The "Cliff's Notes Version" is that my father had a heart attack. He was insured, but unfortunately for him he had the heart attack too young to fit nicely onto those actuary charts that the insurance company keeps handy -- presumably next to the red stamp that says "Declined" for just about anything they can get away with not covering. I remember walking into the kitchen and finding my mother with her head in her hand, yelling into the receiver of the phone that a triple bypass is not an elective procedure.

It devastated my family in so many ways. Financially, the bills were almost laughable. The thought that our family had seven figures worth of anything...much less that we could pay it. My parents' credit score and retirement plans were ruined. His job was no longer just a job; it became the warden that held his health insurance. You see, he was now someone with a "pre-existing" condition, so his career belonged to them. You wouldn't want to have someone as versatile and skilled as my father make a decision on a job based on what's best for his family, his income or his happiness. Clearly Cigna knows best.

And he's one of the lucky ones. He received excellent treatment and survived.

Ask my father about Ted Kennedy and you most likely will not get the warmest of responses, but ask him about health care reform and you'll be there all day as he explains carefully why it has to change and why the "sons of bitches" that do not want it to change are "not worth spitting on". He and Senator Kennedy agreed on that one.

Senator Kennedy was a tireless champion of American health care. His views were "liberal", his state was Massachusetts and his name was Kennedy, and he wanted each and every American to have health care. Period. The fire and resolve in his voice when he discussed this issue matched my father's. They both knew that the existing system, which leaves so many American families literally devastated in the wake of any health-related incident, is one of the most un-American systems we still possess.

Now we have a choice. Does health care reform pass away as legend and a political footnote?

I am sad for my fellow Democrats today as they lose an icon and a leader. But I have been mourning them from the sidelines for weeks as I see so many of them apparently lose their spines. This is war for a better life for most Americans -- poor, lower income and middle class -- and apparently they have decided that they don't quite have the stomach for it.

I don't care how many people get paid to protest at the rallies, I want to see equal passion and determination from the speaker at the podium. You know, the one that is supposed to be in support of this reform?

I don't care what public or private or opt-out or choice clauses people try to disengage and frighten us with. I want the truth of the core issue repeated again and again. Not doing anything is killing us. I'll repeat it for those blue dogs that may have missed it. Not doing anything is KILLING us.

And I don't care what spin, fake statistic or new label the 24-hour news shows put on the fringe zealot minority -- I want to see Democrats and Republicans alike stand up and say that those are not Republicans. Those people are not the proud, conservative, valued people of the red states and it is both an insult to half of our population and a danger to our American political system that they are propped up as representing one of the parties that is helping to build this country.

My God. Is it that easy for the health insurance companies to make fools of both sides of the aisle?

As a small business owner in the south that never met Kennedy and has no formal tie to his family, I'll be wearing black this week. And if I can figure out what kind of ribbon I'm supposed to wear to show my support for this particular disease (there are just so many colors now you see) then I'll do that as well. I'll be showing my quiet respect for him, but more importantly for his issue of health care reform. I want to be asked about it. I want to discuss it. And at the end of that discussion I want for one more person to demand it.

Shawna Vercher is an executive, a social media strategist and a philanthropist. But for today she is focused on the job of being a mother and calls on that role as her qualified authority to speak on the issue of health care reform.

Find Shawna on Twitter on www.twitter.com/shawnavercher.

Follow Shawna Vercher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/shawnavercher

Comments

[creolechild]

If you are concerned about receiving "real" health care reform in this country, please take the time to watch a video on our current system. The video was created by Oregon physicians who are advocating for the single-payer option. The video is very informative and helped me to gain a better understanding of various aspect of health care, as we know now it.

https://www.madashelldoctorstour.com/Mad_as_Hell_Video.html

These Oregon physicians are in the process of organizing a caravan designed to inform the public about the benefits of the single-payer option. At last count they will be stopping in approximately 23 states, on their way to demonstrate in Washington. They need volunteers and our support. Please spread the word.

[JaMar]

Wonderful post. I'm from Canada so I'm particularlly biased towards universal healthcare and am saddened that there are politicians in your country that are fighting tooth and nail to keep Americans uninsured, unhealthy, and broke. Despite what you hear... our GOVERNMENT RUN healthcare is excellent and you should all be fighting for what you deserve.

The thought you or your neighbors sitting around the kitchen table trying to find a way to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a life saving operation is disgusting. Americans everywhere should thank god for Ted Kennedy getting the ball this far and for Barack Obama, who hopefully will carry it over the goal line.

[austin4]

Insurance Companies have been making Billions of Dollars off the Public for years. They will have to be forced to be Honest, a Public Option is the only way

[vim876]

Agreed. Our Declaration of Independence said that "life" is a right. In our current system, 18,000 people die every year because they don't have health insurance. That's like having six 9/11s every year. Clearly, some rights are getting violated. It is just un-American to oppose health care reform when more than half of bankruptcy filings are due to medical costs. People who oppose this seem to think that only the reckless and immoral are hurt by the current system. They are blissfully unaware that they could be diagnosed tomorrow with a serious illness. They might become unable to work and therefore lose their insurance. With a preexisting condition like that, the only way they can keep their insurance is through COBRA, which, while it cannot cancel coverage, is not limited in what it can charge. I know someone in their twenties with chronic illness who, in this situation, was charged nearly $1,000 dollars a month. She had no other options, no one would insure her. It's really disgusting what can happen to people. Anyone who is upset about paying for someone else's perceived "irresponsibility," remember The Good Samaritan (or some equivalent story, which many religions have) and ask yourself, would I leave someone bleeding and unconscious in the street? There is only one answer consistent with American generosity (one of our best, yet most unfairly blasted, traits). Health care for all!

[progressive510]

health care doesn't guarantee life...

Every times someone dies their rights are being denied?

Good luck guaranteeing everything someone arbitrarily chooses is necessary to have a sustainable life.

Lets guarantee everyone a salary, home, bed, toothpaste, air conditioning, a car, a pool, an oven, ect.... it could go on forever

[LebronJeremy]

You're right; health care doesn't guarantee life, and for that matter, the Declaration of Independence isn't a legally binding document.

But you missed the point of the argument. It's estimated that 18,000 people die a year BECAUSE they don't have health insurance; meaning that the researchers who came up with that number believe these 18,000 would still be alive with access to care. Obviously, these are estimates with allowed room for error. But the numbers are probably pretty close.

So, instead of being derisive, why don't you be constructive?

[John Graham]

The problem of pre-existing conditions can be solved by an easy amendment to the Internal Revenue Code that removes the pre-tax dollars that pay our health-insurance premiums from our employers' monopoly control and gives it to us. This would make health insurance the property of the individual, not his employer. I figure the legislation would be about two pages long.
The 1,000 page monstrosity of a bill that is in the House of Reps right now is not health reform; it is a federal take-over of Americans' access to medical services.

[austin4]

I take it you're not familiar with the way Health Insurance Companies work?

[Rivercs]

How, exactly, will this solve the issue of "pre-existing conditions"? Insurance companies deny our attempts to purchase individual policies or refuse to cover the condition and anything that might potentially have something to do with it. For instance, someone who once had an ear infection might learn that the insurance company has refused to cover anything to do with her ears, eyes, nose, and throat at any time, because after all, they're all connected. Someone with a case of acne might have the insurance company refuse to cover anything to do with his skin, including wounds, cuts, burns, etc. This is not an outlanding scenario; it is what they now do.

What it seems you want is for us all to be thrown on the tender mercies of the insurance companies, to fend for ourselves in attempting to purchase individual insurance with those no-longer-pre-tax dollars, and not care that it costs five times as much for coverage that is far, far, worse. Some of us are not insurable, period. I'm one. Nobody wants to insure someone whose kidneys don't work. Well, that would be the end of that for me, and that would, not coincidentally, be the end of me, too.

[steppenwolfsayshi]

Theoretically, if the insurance comapanies were trust-busted, your bill were passed, AND other health-care reforms were passed to lower cost within the system then probably in A FEW YEARS people with pre-existed conditions would be able to buy coverage at a reasonable rate.

But theory don't pay the bills, does it?

[StillweRise]

a wonderful read

[IndependentLass]

(sigh) I wish I would have said that!

Excellent post.

[JoyceBains]

What a wonderful piece of work!

[TexGator]

Thank you. As a 38 year old with a preexisting condition I understand completely what it means to be kept prisoner by your health insurance. I have hopes to someday run my own business, or go back to school to get a doctoral degree. I also have a wife and two small children and live with the daily fear that my health will take a turn for the worse and I will be facing very costly medical treatments so those hopes and dreams have to be deferred or given up completely. But more than that I live with the fear that if and when that day comes my health insurance provider will not be there to help me and my family through that difficult financial struggle and I will be left to go it on my own.

This system that we have is not life, it is not liberty, and it certainly is not the pursuit of happiness. It is an invisible set of shackles that holds down not just the individual but the entire country. I pray not just for my sake but for the sake of all Americans current and future that we get this done and get it done right.

[splinky]

A proposed edit:

You write, "His views were 'liberal', his state was Massachusetts and his name was Kennedy, but he wanted each and every American to have health care."

As a liberal Massachusetts Kennedy supporter, I strongly believe that should not read "but," it should read "and."

[HalfBakedSushi]

Seconded.

[Shawna Vercher]

An excellent point that I'll correct immediately :)

[vim876]

Thirded.

[Hu1b]

True Americans like Shawna are our national treasure, our true core..., and I PRAY for the day when the right-wing fanatics are finally quieted.

[skatoolaki]

Thank you. Passionately and beautifully put; words that many need to hear right now. Thank you for adding your strong and concise voice to the fray. We must fight and we must speak up. It isn't about parties or red vs. blue. It's about equal health care for all, regardless of medical history, job status, the size of someone's bank account, or socio-economic background.

[pwallace]

Funny how that works. Even a "true" Republican changes their mind on "socialized" medicine when it medical horror stories hit close to home. I feel fairly confident that, without his personal experience with health insurance coverage, your father would be hollering with the rest of them on why he shouldn't be made to pay for someone else's health care, how Obama is a socialist, etc. Empathy is sorely lacking in the Republican party.

[ARTIST50]

Thank you for sharing your story. One of my best friends died of the same kind of brain tumor Mr. Kennedy had almost a year ago. She was is great discomfort at the end, so I have empathy for the Kennedy's. Perhaps, this will help our base to realize that the time for reform is now. If we don't do it this time around we won't get another chance. Maybe Teddy will still "get it done"!