what scares me

There was a time I didn't have health insurance. I had left employment to start an at-home business, and I really didn't want to pay the premium quoted by COBRA. I was healthy, and I gambled on staying that way. I was lucky for several years, but then came the diabetes. I ended up going to an urgent care because it seems most doctors don't want to see you if you have no insurance. And hospitals really don't want a patient with no insurance, even if her blood sugar is 600 and she's nearly comatose and even though she would have self-paid. So, I set out to buy health insurance. For one year, I paid outrageous premiums, with a deductible of $5,000, for insurance I couldn't use because of my pre-existing condition. Then, of course, I couldn't use it because I never met the deductible. The premiums went up every year, $4,800 a year for something I never used, just for the privilege of self-paying a doctor who agreed to see me because I had insurance I couldn't use.

Now, the big health care debate is going on. Today I saw a news clip of a senator warning people that they should be afraid that the government would "pull the plug on Grandma." I'm not afraid that plugs will be pulled, but I am afraid when I see a senator fearmongering. It scares me when I see news clips of people at town hall meetings hanging a congressman in effigy, showing up at a town hall with a gun strapped on because it's legal in that particular state, someone accidentally dropping a gun at another meeting, and people painting swastikas on buildings and Hitler moustaches on the President.

It scares me to see elderly people showing up at meetings, shouting that they don't want the government interfering with their health care. Probably most of them receive Social Security benefits and Medicare. There was a man who was injured while protesting health care reform. He had no health insurance and was asking for donations to help him pay his medical bills. Can they really be that ignorant?

I can't help thinking that this has nothing to do with health care reform or deficits or the economy. I heard a surprising statistic recently, that only 40-some% of people who voted for Obama were white. Well, judging from the local people I have had contact with in the last year, not surprising at all. Based on that, what should have surprised me was that it was that high a percentage. What I believe, not think but believe, is that people finally have a contrived excuse to spew their hatred in a public forum, people who will never acquiesce to an African-American President. That's what I'm afraid of, Senator Graessle.