Often, I listen to pundits, ediorialists, and other voices in the political sphere and think “do those people live on my planet?” I have a point of view, to be sure, but often feel that my own good fortune means that I lack the real-world experiences to lend credibility to my arguments.
Steve Hawley is a friend of mine. A very smart man with a very good heart. He also has a daughter with Downs Syndrome. In the discussion on Health Care Reform – and specifically with respect to Sarah Palin’s fearmongering rhetoric about her daughter being forced to go in front of OBAMA’S DEATH PANEL – he definitely has the bona fides to respond:
The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil. – Sarah Palin
You must be quite a privileged person, Sarah Palin. You must live in quite a nice imaginary world. In my world and my daughter’s world, we have to pay for an additional insurance policy outside of my job just to cover my daughter’s needs. She has Down syndrome too. We have to take her to physical therapy twice a week for pretty much her entire life to teach her how to walk. Under the existing health care system, my primary insurance pays for 3 months worth per year and won’t be budged for more because there is no competition. It took her 4 years to learn how to walk. That’s 36 months – three full years – that would not have been covered if I hadn’t been able to pick up MassHealth (Massachusetts public health insurance program) for her.
Read Steve’s full post – Please Sarah Palin, Just Go Away on his website.