could sustain the quality of care that say Obama, GW Bush, and especially Cheney have all received.

I think it could sustain the quality of care that Congresspeople get, though.

Cheney has 1-2 attendants with him at all times to tend to his heart if he has a problem

Has, meaning today, and not while he was VP? Do you have anything to back that up? See here: [link] Cheney's not getting anything better than that, unless he's paying for it himself.

do you really think so? The 60 minutes expose on the daycare they received was enlightening. I know the country could not sustain that. At all.

I had 3 weeks paid maternity leave, and my university started that literally the week Casper was born. Before that you relied on vacation and sick time.

Maria,

no! I don't know for sure. He definitely was getting it as VP and I thought I heard that was still the arrangement now, but I don't know.

Maybe he is paying for that out of pocket! he has enough $$.

I had 3 weeks paid maternity leave, and my university started that literally the week Casper was born. Before that you relied on vacation and sick time.

Good lord. Ugh. Now I feel like a real whiner complaining about five whole weeks...

I think I had 11-12 weeks of disability -- I also had another 4 months' worth of sick leave, which I would dearly have loved to have used, what with needing a full paycheck, craving more time with my child, desperately needing more sleep, and not having any other reason to use it; I was told before Matilda was born that of course I could use the sick leave to extend my maternity leave, and then after she was born I was told that oh, no, of course I couldn't possibly do that, on account of the order in which the paperwork had been filed or something.

And yet, even with the struggling and the misery and the tiny disability pay, I *still* got much more leave than so many other new-parent Buffistas.

And last night, fussing over the FAQFamily pictures, Hec and I talked about the badness of my C-section and how it led to the tremendous goodness of five postpartum days before discharge. After that first night's scare with the brief ICN stay, it was just day after day of quiet and rest and brief visits and daily check-ins with lactation consultants and other people bringing my food and taking away the dirty dishes; getting some sleep, and bonding with Matilda, and just generally taking the necessary time after a giant life-changing and physically grinding event to pull ourselves together for the next big leap.

And I can't for the life of me see why that isn't just standard of care for *every* new parent. If you want to leave early and the doctors give everyone the all-clear then that's great, but the option should be there for everyone, no matter which way the baby came out.

Also frightening is what can happen even if you have good insurance. Federal employees (non-Congressional) are supposed to have among the best insurance deals around.

Insurance paid promptly for my surgery of the summer, which included one night in the hospital. I put my part of the costs on a credit card, and the bill comes due this month -- $4,000.00.

Yes, I can handle that (and get points from the credit card). But I have to wonder, if I'm one of the lucky ones, how does anyone else get by when surgery is needed? And what happens with major surgery that requires long hospital stays? (It isn't like my surgery was particularly elective -- my left arm would likely have become paralyzed eventually if I did nothing.)

And there are idiots out there that think we don't have a problem with, as ND points out, access to decent health care (never mind excellent care).

I'm so thankful that our HMO was good with my extended hospitalization last year. We ended up maxing out or annual costs and didn't pay much beyond that, but now that I've been through that, I'm essentially uninsurable through anything other than an employer provided policy. If Kristin's job situation changes we are completely hosed as far as me being able to get coverage. One of my few options would be to abandon my career just to take a job that provided health care. How does that even make sense?

His round-the-clock shadow came from the White House Medical Office. He doesn't get that any more.

If he still has that kind of coverage, he's either paying out of pocket or someone else is picking up the tab. The federal health care plan he is eligible for certainly doesn't allow for that.

The maternity leave in this country is shameful. My cousin in France (who works 3/4 time) had 16 weeks of full paid maternity leave (6 before birth and 10 after) plus up to three years of parental leave (unpaid, but with a stipend from the government and additional money from her mutuel), with the right to return to her job or something similar, with all commensurate pay raises. The U.S. is a joke.