PaulDS's Journal

I got an e-mail from Sentor Dodd this morning inviting me to share my thoughts on the health care issue and how it had affected me.

Here's what I wrote:

Dear Senator Dodd,

I grew up in a home where caring for the less fortunate was always encouraged. Our house was where all of the neighborhood strays gathered, animals and children alike, and every child was an equal regardless of the cut of our clothes or the state of the homes where we each lived.

As I set out on my own, I continued to seek ways to be of service to the people around me, offering homeless men my couch and a meal, traveling across the globe to build water systems and hospitals, then to San Bernardino to help teach kids how to write about their lives.

I've had a good life.

It was while working with homeless veterans that I first got angry about how we treat the least among us. Like many, I grew up believing that this was the greatest country on earth and, with some reservations, I believe this is still true. But our greatness lies in our potential, not in the realities I see around me.

Almost 20 years ago, my mom, my great inspiration for helping others, was diagnosed with emphysema. She was a smoker for 30 years and had other health problems prior to this but the long, slow death ended up bankrupting my parents. They never complained, never thought to join a class-action against a tobacco company, never fought with the insurance companies who slowly pared down my parents coverage until they paid almost everything out of pocket. They just paid, and paid, and paid, taking out second and third mortgages on their home, letting their employees go, selling their small business, and the only financial relief for them came when she eventually died.

Watching their struggle and not being able to help beyond writing the occasional check to cover household expenses of course made me think of those less fortunate than we were; those who simply died because they couldn't afford treatment.

Why, with all of the great wealth of this nation do we treat the least among us so callously? Regardless of our religious beliefs, we all claim to care for those less fortunate. Are we so selfish, so greedy in our hearts that we cannot reach out beyond ourselves to help?

Is our government so cynical that it can't see how a healthy work force makes sense to build our economy? Are our insurance companies, pharma companies, and benefits managers so greedy that they can't provide better, more cost-effective care and forego the record salaries they take home? Ultimately we have to ask what have we become? What does our future hold? We are 37th in the world in health care, our economy is in a shambles, and we are beholden to Wall Street more and more as each year goes by.

I am now convinced that a single-payer health care system is the only way to realize the full potential of delivering health care to every American, cradle to grave, and implore you to fight for nothing less than a full public option as a first step toward this goal.

I have great respect for you as both a person and a politician. I know it's an ugly business doing what you do and that you must struggle to balance your personal integrity with the political realities of Washington. That said, I trust you to do what's best for the people.

Paul Asplund
Los Angeles, CA