Ellington

Am I the biggest fan of Health Care Reform? No... I think a number of additional steps, like the public option, could have been taken to make this a more comprehensive solution. And I'm worried that it doesn't yet do enough to curb the costs of medicine in this country while making sure access (and cost sharing of the system) are universal.

But within the framework of "getting something done" -- including the fact that the reforms themselves include a number of GOP proposals from a saner time in that party's history -- I think HCR represents a positive step in the right direction.

And I think we'll see and hear more stories like this one as a result:

In the L.A. Times this week, is the guest op-ed 'Obamacare' to the rescue. The woman who wrote it was once angry at Obama for passage of that law, but now finds that the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan created by the law will help keep her family from bankruptcy now that she's found out that she has breast cancer. This middle class family -- two good jobs, etc. -- has been downsized and through the wringer trying to run their own business. Not looking for hand-outs or living on the dole.

Fortunately for me, I've been saved by the federal government's Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, something I had never heard of before needing it. It's part of President Obama's healthcare plan, one of the things that has already kicked in, and it guarantees access to insurance for U.S. citizens with preexisting conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months. The application was short, the premiums are affordable, and I have found the people who work in the administration office to be quite compassionate (nothing like the people I have dealt with over the years at other insurance companies.) It's not perfect, of course, and it still leaves many people in need out in the cold. But it's a start, and for me it's been a lifesaver — perhaps literally.

Read the whole thing if you get a chance... it's moving stuff. And it's worth at least a moment of reflection as we go into yet another wacky-stupid season of politics, now "new and improved" with the billions that will be spend by shadowy multinational corporations and PACs on the presidential campaign.

And that reflection is this... what if there was a way to compromise on policy, work toward progress and continue to fine-tune the solutions to our nation's ills as we go along? What if intelligent people could sit around tables and hash out some of those solutions, beholden less to the simple stupidity of intractable ideas than to a mandate that tells them to get something done?