Obama: Run the Goddamned Option!

The following is text I composed for the “Additional message to President Obama” field, after I had signed my name to CredoAction.com’s petition “Tell Obama: The public option is not optional.” I urge all of you who read this while the health care reform issue is still current to do the same. Unless you don’t agree with me. No, fuck that — if you don’t agree I still want you to sign it.

Health care reform has been the issue of greatest concern to me for a long time. Therefore, in the following I will make every effort to temper my vehement language and trust that you will pardon me if a mild profanity or two do creep in.

If you punt on the public option, this whole initiative will have been in vain. All that would be left in the bill would be the window dressing. Window dressing, without a bloody *window*!

Regional health care co-ops? Are you kidding me? Guess what: I’m already in one, and it absolutely sucks. It’s called a “discount program.” The discounts are extremely minute, and limited to only a very few services. It’s currently the only kind of health coverage I can get, and for this fig leaf I pay $200 per month.

I and millions of other Americans like me NEED the public option. As it stands, and would continue to stand without a public option, only the wealthy are not at the financial mercy of the insurance and pharma companies. The rest of us are being bled dry (sometimes quite literally). Big Healthcare’s very business model pays off for them by *treating* patients — NOT by *making them well.* It may be profitable, but it is also amoral. It is malignant to the ideal of a well-functioning society.

The anti-reformers are flagrantly playing politics with our health. I expect you to call them out on it. I voted for you because I believed that you would take this kind of bold stance if it became necessary. Well, it is absolutely fucking necessary. It’s getting more necessary every day.

Do you want to go down in history as the President who bailed out Wall Street to save the economy, only to let us all go slowly bankrupt because of the unchecked cost of health care? I for my part don’t want that for you, or for the country.

Again, here’s the link to the petition at credoaction.com.