I took a break from being apolitical over the weekend, but I feel like I had a pretty good excuse. It's not everyday that the President of the United States of America visits your hometown, especially when your hometown is in one of the least populated states. How could one not get caught up in the excitement?
The picture above is Marine 1, 2, or 3. Not sure as they all looked the same and were buzzing over the house most of the day on Friday, Saturday, and even one REALLY low one yesterday. They were supposed to be Obama's transportation while he was here, but the weather was too rainy for them to use them. It started hailing just minutes after Air Force One landed (hail to the chief). Living near the airport, I was hoping to be able to see Air Force One coming in, but the hovering helicopters were a noisy enough distraction that I didn't see it until it was mostly out of view.
I liked what I heard from Obama during the townhall meeting. I really haven't paid much attention to the health care debate, partly because I don't have any issues and partly because of the reasons I went apolitical in the first place. It's interesting how varied people's viewpoints are and it generally depends on their own personal experience. If you have never had to use your insurance much or for anything serious, you probably don't think much about the topic (kinda like myself). Anyone that has had serious medical problems or knows someone that has knows will tell you something completely different. Even as my mom was dying, she had to fight to get money from the insurance company that she had been insured through for umpteen years. That was almost 15 years ago. Now my dad is dealing with different issues, more on the hospital side of things, due to my stepmom's health problems. He doesn't believe in socialized medical care, but he thinks something needs to give or it's only going to get worse.
Then you have someone like my friend Mikey. He's only 23 or 24, grew up in southern Idaho, and is a frequent listener of conservative talk radio. I think it would be safe to assume that he doesn't believe that the government should be interfering in this. I found out this weekend that he as been out of work for almost 2 weeks. He has been having severe headaches and his hands have been numb. Worse case scenario is MS or a brain tumor. They won't know that until he has an MRI. The only insurance that Mikey has available to him is really expensive, like I don't know why you would pay that much for insurance when it covers almost nothing. Needless to say, he chose not to pay for that insurance because he and his girlfriend are healthy, young, and both making ~$10/hour if that at their jobs. Now Mikey is in the position that he has to have an MRI, an MRI that costs $3000-$4000, in addition to all of the other money he owes for everything leading up to this. It's really could be a matter of life or death for him and the beginning of a lot of scary stuff for him. We all hope it is not, but even if he is he will still owe a lot of money.
It's stories like Mikey's that made me excited to hear Obama speak of insurance exchanges. I thought it more or less sounded like a co-op and what do you know - that's the term popping up in the news now after his weekend tour of the West. Non-profit insurance co-op's sound like a great idea to help people get insurance without messing with mine. Co-op's are all about group buying power and are a pretty great idea in general, if you ask me.
I appreciated the fact that the media all said the townhall event took place in Belgrade and not Bozeman. It's kinda exciting to see your hometown in the national spotlight. I also really appreciated the fact that the media recognized how well-mannered the people were and uneventful (all things considered) the whole thing was. Anyone could have lined up for the chance to get tickets. We're traditionally a Republican state and have a huge tea party faction here. Yet, the whole thing transpired without any negative incident. People, both in the townhall meeting and those outside protesting, were able to express and share their views with passion and civility. Thanks for making me proud Montana.
OK, I think I can go back to my apolitical corner again.
Life After Birth Control is still coming soon.
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