I am insured and very healthy. If we pass a healthcare bill that ensures universal coverage I will, most likely, end up paying more for others’ medical care than than they will pay for mine. Despite this, or because of this, I support universal health coverage. Providing basic medical care for every person in the country is the right thing to do. My healthcare expenses last year totaled about $15—mostly for cough drops. My younger brother’s health expenses last year were roughly three thousand times higher. He was insured—so one year’s extraordinary expenses were affordably spread out over many people and many years. Not everybody is so fortunate.

The rhetoric over the healthcare debate has gotten absurd. First we had Nazi Death Panels. Now we have the GOP pushing the lie that people will be denied coverage based on political orientation. This trainwreck of horribles stretches so far beyond plausibility that even parody is impossible. I suppose it’s necessary. The traditional arguments about moderate tax increases and possible inefficiencies aren’t particularly convincing in the face of the simple truth that our fellow citizens are dying and we could prevent it. I don’t know if the young woman who cannot afford her depression meds or the older woman who cannot afford her cancer treatments deserve healthcare anymore than I care whether I, in some cosmic sense, deserve my good health. But I know the right thing to do when it comes to helping them. I support universal health coverage.

(via squashed)