The vacation that wasn't ... how healthcare popped onto my radar

I wanted to return home to Texas after a much-deserved two-week break -- refreshed, locked and loaded for the political fray, with some very specific goals in mind. I spelled out my top priorities in a post entitled "Starting the good fight." You'll note healthcare was nowhere on my list of priorities.

Life, the 1960s pop reference goes, is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. And so it went this year as my brothers and I stood around our mother's hospital bed Thanksgiving Day as she fought her way back from a semi-coma.

What a difference a day can make. Standing there watching100-plus years of fight take on death and win, I couldn't help but realize how much of a Thanksgiving we were getting in real time. Not only were we privileged to witness Life win over death, we did it in the only state in our Union that has comprehensive healthcare. We would not be a family bankrupted by medical bills nor one that had to stop care immediately after the emergency room. 

There would be rehab, in-home nursing and post-medical services. Sure, there will be the random bill from a lab or so, but thanks to my parents' lifelong labors in a place we jokingly called Taxachusetts, they earned coverage beyond that of their relatives living in other states.

It is inconceivable to me that there still exist families who are not this fortunate: either in the battle of Life over Death or in their choice of homestead. I know of people who have been bankrupted by such medical emergencies and it should not be so in this The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twelve. 

We need Obamacare and we need it enacted for every citizen who works hard, plays by the rules and only expects in return a modicum of dignity in times of illnes. I say we make sure they get that.