I am also full of rage. I'm waiting for a patronizing auto-response from "Doc".

I'm not really sure how a stranger would get to know me...I admit I am wary. Shinning sincerity might help

God...that pick-up stuff,I think I can hear Gavin de becker scream from here(although I did enjoy the show "The pick-up Artist" a few years ago, in a guilty-pleasure way...those guys were mostly sweet geeks, though.) But it is creepy recognizing dating techniques from "The Gift of Fear"(as don'ts of course) But seriously, if Dude can create a dynamic where he can make you think you have to defend yourself, you might bend over to prove him wrong. Which is how rapists isolate us from the herd as well, actually, and how eight nurses let one sick psycho overpower and kill them all. (/Gavin de Becker likes empowered women's carrots) Gee, I bet I'm crazy-fun on a date. Well, maybe with Gavin de Becker.

I'd ask the people opposed to public healthcare if they feel we'd be better off without public education either, but I'm worried that the answer would be yes.

>Have none of these people been denied coverage by their private healthcare company? Because a shitload of people are, every day. Because your insurance company is a money-making enterprise. They don't actually care about your care!

EXACTLY!!!

I'd ask the people opposed to public healthcare if they feel we'd be better off without public education either, but I'm worried that the answer would be yes.

(shudder) Jessica is me. (ETA: not shuddering because Jessica is me, but because I fear she is totally spot-on correct 100% accurate.)

I'd ask the people opposed to public healthcare if they feel we'd be better off without public education either, but I'm worried that the answer would be yes.

Yeah, for quite a lot of them it would be.

I'm writing my senators and representative. My two senators are female Democrats. My rep is a man named Doc.

What freaks me out and annoys the crap out of me is that my EMPLOYER sent me postcards already written and signed by "ME" and addressed to those same senators and MY representative explaining how "I" feel that we should keep our employer based healthcare. And urged me to send in these postcards, etc etc. I was like "OH FUCK NO"

I'd ask the people opposed to public healthcare if they feel we'd be better off without public education either, but I'm worried that the answer would be yes.

The people disrupting these meetings? I'm pretty sure you're right.

Betsy H-P linked to this on her LJ: [link]

And despite all of this, you appear blithely unaware that the free market healthcare system we have now does, indeed, have “death panels.” I’ve been part of a death panel conversation. I know about death panels.

You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.

If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is.