From the Un- and Under-Insured

We, the people with poor or no health insurance, demand the following things from Americans who think we're not entitled to medical treatments:

Stop praying. I'm not saying don't pray for our health - you are more than welcome to - and I'd be thankful. What gets old is saying you'll pray for us in response to our health care problems. Health care - not health. You'd be praying for health care, and they're winning... trust me, they don't need any prayers. Not to mention that the Christian (and other religions) thing to do is to care for others, and our current health care system is failing miserably at doing that.

Stop making blanket statements about our conditions. I don't know how many times I've heard, "I took good care of myself, so I'm healthy. Maybe if you did the same...". You know what? There are medical conditions that you have absolutely no control over. Asthma, autism, mental disorders, muscular dystrophy, Down's syndrome, multiple sclerosis, lupus, type 1 diabetes... I could name plenty more. Yes, there are some people that smoke, drink or eat their way to their conditions. And I'm sorry that they can't help themselves for their health. But don't act like we all brought this upon ourselves with poor choices. For the majority of us, that's completely false.

Stop talking about your money. If you lose some of your money, you will survive. If we don't get our chemotherapy/radiation/operation/treatment, our lives are at stake. We don't want to hear you complain about it, because you won't die. Not only that, but we're paying an insane amount more for our medical treatments (for the most part for conditions we had no part in acquiring) than you can imagine. And we're more than punished for being born with poor genetics, so we're paying for something that we had no control over either. And you think we'll feel sorry for you? You come across as an arrogant, selfish person when you try to make a case for your money with us.

Don't use the "I'd help people with their bills if the government didn't get involved." Really? Good. Because I, along with thousands of other people have plenty of bills for you to help with - email me. The only way for us to get help is to make it mandatory. You're proof that leaving it up to the population to take care of each other isn't working.

Don't say things about health care reform like "it's just not the right option." Right now, there are plenty of us who have nothing. I'm sure you can agree that something is better than nothing, right? We're supposed to wait for politicians who disagree just to disagree to come up with something better. Have you noticed how long it's taken to get this far? We need something to hold us over until they can make it better. Because just dropping it is the worst choice for us.

Drop the capitalism argument. Capitalism is a great thing - but not on something that your life depends on. Those prices should be kept in check. Again, it's live or die, and the market is a monopoly - I can't get chemotherapy anywhere but from a medical community with the help of insurance companies.

So there you have it. What we, the un- and under-insured Americans, want from you - the American who has great insurance or who doesn't know what it's like to depend on medical attention you can't pay for.

Sincerely,

Us