jemappellery submitted:
In my first presidential election, I am what they call a one-issue voter. I didn’t think I would be; when I started looking seriously at the candidates, I thought things like economic policy, the war in Afghanistan and gay rights would be things I would seriously consider.
They weren’t. It came down to the Affordable Care Act. As a college student with a pre-existing, chronic condition, healthcare is incredibly important to me. I am alive today because of the healthcare I have received. I have medications that cost $32,000 a year wholesale. I have been hospitalized twice in the past year. I will probably be hospitalized once a year for the foreseeable future. A drug that addresses the underlying cause of my genetic disease is in development, but a similar drug for a slightly different mutation costs $294,000 a year. What I’m saying: I am not a cheap person to insure.
However, because of the Affordable Care Act, I am secure in the knowledge that I can stay on my parents’ healthcare plan until I am 26 years old. The insurance company cannot cap the amount of care I can receive in my lifetime. In the future, I will be able to get insurance regardless of how much my care costs. I will not be denied because of my pre-existing condition. I will not have a limit on the care that will be paid for in a year.
If Mitt Romney becomes president, this historic act will be repealed. Romney has said that he will repeal Obamacare on his first day in office. That will be absolutely catastrophic for me. The Affordable Care Act means that insurance is no longer something I have to think about every day. It means that I will be covered for the medicines and treatments I need. The Affordable Care Act will keep me healthy for years to come.
The Affordable Care Act is the one reason I am voting for Obama in 2012. I doesn’t hurt that I agree with him on all the other issues, too.
Seconded. There’s lots of other important stuff (like the fact that Romney seems intent on keeping gays and women in the back of the bus, so to speak), but on a selfish, personal level, I’m down with healthcare that won’t magically disappear when I turn 24, and I’ll do my best to elect the candidate that will make that happen.
Okay, I might be opening up a can of worms here, but can anyone explain to me why people don’t want other people to have healthcare? Like, I get that everyone’s all “oh, the quality of healthcare in America will plummet if it’s socialized” because of… reasons, I don’t know, but do they really think that some mediocre healthcare is better than no healthcare? Speaking as someone with several chronic illnesses, I promise I’d personally prefer to be able to get the medicine I need to not die at a reasonable price than… well pretty much anything.
But really, I do want to hear arguments from the other side. I can’t promise that I’ll agree, but I’d like to know for the sake of knowing.
