Hypocritc Oath

I feel pretty fortunate. I also feel pretty healthy. These are both good indicators that my health insurance is up to snuff. It is the thing about being a teacher that makes the salary a little more livable. The district has taken care of me over the past couple decades, or at least their contracted health care providers have. I don't tend to be a very high-maintenance patient, preferring instead to wait until something breaks or aches before I check in with my doctor. Still, it's nice to know that as my original parts start to wear out and the tune-ups required are a little more frequent that I've got someplace to go with my family's maladies.
I am not one of the nearly sixty  million Americans who are not covered by their employer's health care plans. I'm not sure, but I think even the friendly folks at Fox News get their tonsils out thanks to Rupert Murdoch's largesse. One hundred sixty million people, or thereabouts, have coverage at their place of work. That's about sixty percent. The rest of us have to look somewhere else. Why not The Affordable Care Act?
It could be that the web site was down, or that the various plans were hard to decipher, or perhaps it was that looming specter of Death Panels, but only seven million people have signed up for "Obamacare." I don't know about you, but it seems like if the plan is going to bear his name, Barack ought to be there handing out tongue depressors. Seven million of them.
But that was never really the plan, was it? The whole idea was to make health care affordable. Wouldn't it be an awesome thing if you didn't have to choose between paying rent and health insurance? Should I buy food this month or the bottle of pills that will keep me alive long enough to eat it? Such a conundrum. And still there are those who will argue and fuss and tell us that everything is just fine the way it always has been. Like when doctors used to drop by your house on their way home from the office to check and see how you were getting along, in their horse and carriage. When you could still buy a bottle of leeches for a reasonable price. What is it they used to say? "I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure." I'm not sure that was depending on your plan. That was supposed to be the deal.