“Obamacare”: the title itself speaks volumes regarding opposition to the Affordable Health Care Act–opposition that is purely political, as opposed to humane. If as a United States Senator, or a constituent, you seek its repeal, then I implore you to reconsider your intended actions.
I am a clinical speech-language pathologist. I have stood at the deathbeds and gravesites of former patients institutionalized due to stroke, brain injury, or developmental disability. I carry within me memories of these innocent and hapless human beings dying the death of slow respiratory failure–a death I would not wish upon a vicious dog. I carry within me incredulous anger at having been denied opportunity to treat them solely because insurance funding had run out.
I am a traumatic brain injury survivor. I found myself fired shortly after my workplace injury, with my health insurance discontinued, Workers’ Compensation retroactively denied, and subsequently was turned away from one aid source after another. Mostly recovered five years later, I carry within my skull an atrophied brain amounting to a sentence of shortened lifespan. I carry the stigma of bankruptcy, and tens of thousands of dollars in undischarged debt, as legacy of what health care I was able to obtain.
The Affordable Care Act was drafted and enacted to right such wrongs as I have witnessed and experienced. Imperfect though it may be, causing its repeal will stain your hands with the blood of countless individuals–individuals who perhaps are invisible to you, but who live and die in plain sight of One who sees all.
For the sake of God, for the sake of humankind, for the sake of our country, and for the sake of your own soul, reconsider your stance. Let Affordable Health Care stand.
Thank you for considering my words. May God guide you, and bless our country.
Merlin L. Taylor, Jr., Ph.D., CCC-SLP
I am making comment not upon my own open letter, but rather upon how I chose to respond to a good friend’s comment made via Facebook. In responding, I failed to exploit an opportunity for reaffirming one principle I have emphasized almost everywhere else I have made any kind of a statement: that mind is essential to humanity, such that no human individual possesses mind any more or any less than any other human individual. When speaking of mindlessness, I make reference to patterns of behavior–not capacities of individuals.
I apologize to any I may have puzzled with regard to what I truly believe. I apologize to my friend for my own failure to step up to a figurative net. Even in the friendliest game of tennis, a crisp serve demands more than a limp return!
Thanks for understanding. God bless all.