Marriage

One of my heroes, Dan Savage, has been saying for some time that the religious extremists in this country have launched a war on straight rights (you know, as well as the almost openly declared one on gay rights - pretty much it's a war on anyone and anything different from "them" with an increasingly visible number of battlefields).

Here's a story about a city in Missouri where it is NOT ok for an unmarried couple to live with their two children. I gotta wonder if it is ok for someone to live with his sister, mom, and wife (this needs to be at least two different women) and their 11 children.

The Missouri instance of state based family enforcement is put forth under the guise of housing code. Yes. Really. The city's website says one of the purposes of these codes is to "avoid overcrowding by non-related parties", "preserve the character of the neighborhoods and the City" and "protect the general safety and welfare of the City’s residents."

Apparently, the thinking of many residents goes something like: We must do something ti protect ourselves from unmarried couples living together and their bastard children who will destroy the character of the neighborhood! We want to be sure our cars are broken into by legitimate children only.

Funny thing is, this forced adherence to "legitimate" baby making coupling only is nothing new. Even the coat of morality paint that has been thrown on it is not new. Augustus Caesar did the whole pushing the traditional marriage one man, one woman, approved by the state and making lots of babies thing a long time ago. He also did the whole punishing people who didn't have babies, didn't get married, didn't have a monogamous marriage thing too. Nothing new. Not even a little.

So now from the far flung province of Black Jack Missouri comes this very Augustan instance of state mandated family values. Is the Black Jack city council proud of enforcing good pagan values? Were they told to do this by watching birds over town hall or by reading the entrails of a ritually slain sow? Did someone give them a stone fucking tablet? Because otherwise, they should butt the fuck out.

Black Jack's mayor, Praefectus McCourt declined to be interviewed but said in a statement that those who do not meet the town's definition of family could soon face eviction.

The current ordinance prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by "blood, marriage or adoption."

So what makes a family? Love, commitment, devotion, and support are not enough by some folks' standards. Apparently, if you're a really serious cracker, family is one man, one woman, one blessing from a church, one expensive ceremony, one frighteningly prom-like reception, one new brother-in-law getting drunk and hitting on the bridesmaid, one new mother-in-law drunk and hitting, two rings you probably couldn't afford to buy and which you will loose within the first year of your marriage when one of you gets angry and throws their ring at the other one, and a piece of paper stamped by an important person who raised enough money for the local pols to be given a patronage position.

BTW, if you'd like to congratulate McCourt and the City of Black Jack council for upholding the values of the (unholy) Roman Empire, you can e-mail him here. You can read Mr. Savage's most recent "Straight Rights Update" here.

Mothers to me

I was thinking that there are several women I have known in my lifetime who have, even in small ways, been like a mother to me. Which is a good thing because if that job had been lfet entirely to my actual mother, I would have turned out pretty scary (er?).

Since it was mother's day recently, I figured I'd recognize these women and my gratitude for what they contributed to my life. There are some women who I have left off the list because they were more professional/mentor type people, although they certainly have helped me as well.

Various childhood friends' mothers - notably Carolyn's mother (Mrs. Rossi) and Liz's mother (Mrs. Kurpeski). No, not a cozy and squishy happy mommy type thing, but they were mother models that were in many ways superior to my own. They also provided safe homes for their daughters and by proxy, if nothing else, provided a place for me to stay (sometimes for days on end it seemed) when I was a kid without making me feel like an interloper.

My friend cjblue's mother, Rena. Again, not someone I have a lovey mother-daughtery relationship with but someone who always treated me kindly and respectfully, who made me feel welcome in her home, who hosts a great brunch, and who is poised, considerate, and an excellent mom.

My friend Marion Aitches. She was a professor in my undergraduate program in Michigan. I had her for a literature course, but I became friends with her first through interactions as her student and then after completing her course and graduating. I visited her on a few occasions and her house always felt homey to me. She's elegant and articulate, intelligent, and quick to laugh. Her life has been very rich, providing ample topics for stories of growth and the difficult processes of becoming a self possessed person, always told with a great sense of humor.

My friend Beverley Goodman. She is amazing. Beverley was my undergraduate advisor. She started working in the department towards the end of my time at college but quickly became one of my favorite teachers ever. She's candid, honest, outspoken, insightful, very funny, considerate, and full of some great contradictions (idealism and cynnicism, informality and diligence, pacificism and rowdiness). Also, her advice and support for me has always been so unbelievably well timed and appropriately irreverent. She's one of those quiet rebel types. I admire Beverley immensely for all of her personal and professional acheivements that she shared with me, but also more recently because she was able to take on a bum of a husband and a life threatening, life changing illness. Even superhuman strength won't help make that kind of combo anything less than torture. Beverley was honest about how much it sucked and I was so relieved she didn't bullshit me. Getting through something like this takes incredible strength and she did it, honestly and as always, on her own terms.

Bill Frist on Marriage or Bill Frist Isn't a Man Because Real Men Don't Conduct Illegal, Unethical Research on Kitties

This is a recent quote from Senate majority leader Bill Frist:
"I basically say, Mr. Vice President, right now marriage is under attack in this country," Frist said on CNN. "And we've seen activist judges overturning state by state law, where state legislatures have passed laws defining marriage between a man and a woman, and that's being overturned by a handful of activist judges around the country. And that is why we need an amendment to come to the floor of the United States Senate to define marriage as that union between one man and one woman."

Some interesting facts about Bill Frist:
He didn't vote until he was 36.
As a medical student, he "adopted" cats from Boston area animal shelters to use them to conduct medical experiments. In his own words, he would "treat them as pets for a few days" before it was time to "cart them off to the lab to die."

There are so many more things to know about Mr. Frist. Oh I'm sorry, I mean Herr Doktor Senator Frist. I invite you to research them yourself if you are interested in finding out more about him. Type "Bill Frist" and any of the following terms ("eli lilly", "campaign finance", "civil rights", "corruption") into the search engine of your choice.

I digress. Back to manhood and how we might define it so there is no room for marriages which attack marriage in this country.

What makes a man? Presumably Senator Frist knows, or believes he does. Torturing pets makes him an expert in things biological. One would think that it's important this be carefully defined now that Frist is planning to use a proposed Constitutional definition of marriage as between "a man and a woman" as a campaign issue for the GOP this year.

How might we define "man" for Frist? Casting aside all the research on gender as a social construct, let's just go with our guts (thank you Mr. Colbert) There are many men out there who for one reason or another do not embody all or even many of even the less negative social characteristics of masculinity (most of my faculty for example) but who are indisputably men (I have this impression because they self identify as men through exclusion of people perceivable as women. Also, they make jokes about their wives, fart in public, and harass female graduate students). Therefore, I'm sure Senator Frist would agree that to avoid subjecting men to the kind of gender assessment scrutiny that women are (routinely, daily) subjected to, "man" must be defined by biology.

This raises the question of what part of biology. Frist knows what lurks in the hearts of cats, but what does he know about what makes a man? A simple and obvious biological definition seems to be that a man is someone who has a penis (and the rest of the equipment). Before we run off half cocked and include this definition in the proposed amendment, we need to remember that such a narrow definition as this would exclude anyone who might have lost some or all of that equipment (due to trauma, illness, or maybe a run in with young Dr. Frist) or who is for whatever reason morphologically non-standard. Clearly this population of men shouldn't be denied the right to marry due to disfigurement or extreme variation. Thus, "man" should be defined as someone who has, had, or could have (with some corrective surgery) external man parts.

Woops, hold the phone. According to a Texas judge, we can't rely on that. This might allow transsexuals to marry. In her ruling, this judge wrote that rather than rely on external sexual characteristics "...We must instead be guided by biological factors such as chromosomes, gonads, and genitalia at birth." We've already rejected the gonads and genitalia at birth thing because it unfairly excludes people who unintentionally or unavoidably have non-standard or non-discernable man parts. We need something more basic. How about chromosomes. Now there's something solid. A man is someone who possesses a Y chromosome.

Unfortunately, there are a number of sex chromosome variations resulting in configurations other than full on XX/XY types (I defer to my sister for a more complete discussion of this). According to the site linked above, sex chromosome variations are more common than Down Syndrome and Cystic Fibrosis. Oh dear. There could be adults who don't even know they have non-typical sex chromosomes, and they could be MARRIED! Someone should tell Frist. I am pretty sure he skipped genetics in favor of the "Recent Trends in Unethical Research" course, so he probably is unaware.


I don't know about you but I have an exceptionally hard time stomaching the idea that this man is in a position to decide anything other than whether he wants to spend his recreation hour nervously reading a book in his cell or getting some air out in the yard with the other inmates. Why the fuck is a monsterous bastard like this calling the shots our senate?

I just donated some money to a Boston area animal shelter. What else can you do? Really. I guess if you are eligible to vote in the US you can care about who gets elected to the US congress, you can research your local candidates, and you can VOTE in November.

Pictured above are Bootsie, Simab, and Agador - adoptable cats at the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem Massachusetts. You can visit these cats or other adoptable cats here, and you can donate here.
You can make a donation in Senator Frist's name here.

Arts and crafts II

Now that I've spent far too long playing with photoshop, it's time to do some work. But I do think the result was worth the humor. This picture is more than simple heartache. This one is a reminder of some of what sucked. Let me tell you the story of Very Secret Santa.

It was christmas 2004. My ex (Tom, played by Ashton Kutcher) and I were together for what would be our last christmas. The year before we had spent a financially, emotionally, and physically draining christmas in Vermont for his brother's ski wedding extravaganza. I had told Tom that this year I really wanted, no, needed to keep christmas low key. He assured me he did too. I reminded him that this meant with his family. He agreed with me, but somehow we still had a fight about why I was so critical of his family.

Some time in the Fall of 2004, Tom's family had decided that it was too expensive for everyone to buy everyone else a present. They weren't broke, not by any means. His parents took about 6 vacations a year. Past vacations have included Hawaii, several caribbean islands, Iceland, Alaska, various boat trips on a friend's yacht, and ski trips to Aspen as well as the small nearly weekly side trips to ski in Vermont throughout the winter. I however was broke and didn't really like christmas all that much anyhow. Christmas downsizing sounded like a marvelous idea to me so I was pretty happy when Tom told me that his family had decided we'd all pick a name at Thanskgiving for Secret Santa.

Soon after this announcement, I was told Secret Santa had been amended so that you got three things for the person whose name you drew. One homemade present (cookies, pie, etc), one small present, and one larger present. Um...ok. It seemed a little complicated but I figured if this was what they wanted then I'd go along with it. Then some time later, after he had been on the phone with his Gram, Tom told me that Secret Santa had been canceled, mostly because Tom's father and uncle had been upset at the thought of not getting the usual tons of presents from other people. Tom was annoyed, I was annoyed, Tom was annoyed that I was annoyed. We had another argument about his family.

Thanskgiving came. Later in the evening, I found myself stranded in the living room with my ex's sister, mother, grandmother, and various aunts and female friends of the family. I was tucked into the couch between Gram and Tom's sister when Gram said to me "Oh! You haven't drawn a name for Secret Santa!"

This provoked flurry of discussion among the women present about whether or not I had drawn a name, whether or not names had been drawn in general, and when other people would be or had been drawing names. I was confused and said so to Gram. It turns out I should have just smiled and made a non-committal noise because Gram reacted as if I had jumped up onto the coffee table and hollered "Fuck Secret Santa!" She was offended but tried to come across as concerned. "If you didn't want to do it, why didn't you say something? Tom didn't tell me you didn't want to do Secret Santa," she exclaimed, placing her hand on my arm. I tried to explain "No, it's not that I don't want to. I do, I mean it's your family. It's only that Tom told me, I mean, I thought Tom said you guys weren't doing it and that everyone was just going to get everyone presents." Gram's eyes widened and her grip tightened. Other people stopped talking and were paying attention to the drama on the couch. I continued, addressing the room as a whole, "I mean I thought everyone who normally gets everyone presents would, I mean, I'm not trying to tell you what to do..." Oh god. Now I felt like I was saying I wanted every single one of his family members to buy me a present. Picture Meet the Parents. I was like Greg. Everything I did made it worse.

Tom's grandmother said loudly "If you don't want to do Secret Santa (PFG), we don't have to do it. We didn't know you didn't want to exchange presents!" This started another round of discussion among the women about whether or not we should do Secret Santa, who wanted to originally, who wanted to still, and an evolution of the entire decision process by way of a reiteration of all the private arguments presented (mostly by the men) for and against Secret Santa which had been communicated through the network of women. "If (PFG) doesn't want to do it, maybe we shouldn't." "Oh but Wes really wanted to." "Mom, I can't afford to buy you ALL presents. It's not fair for Allen and me to have to buy presents for everyone." "(PFG) and Tom didn't get a present for Marilyn and Richard last year..." "Brian always gets presents for everyone (awwww he's so sweet yes he is isn't he) and he really doesn't have much money." "We just thought that with Dave and Aimee buying a new house it would be easier on everyone if we did it this way" "But if you don't want to..."

This was perhaps one of the more socially uncomfortable situations I've ever been in. Mostly because my normal tendency is to meet this kind of escalating foolishness with a proportionally increased level of blunt decisive discourse in order to cut through the bullshit. But with these people, direct speech only made things worse. Finally I couldn't take it. I nearly yelled "NO! I'm fine with doing it. Really, it's ok! I just didn't understand because...Look, please, everyone - just do whatever you want. It's your christmas - I'm just along for the ride."

More discussion. More gripping of my arm. More subtle accusations that I wanted to hijack the family christmas with my grinchy selfish ways.

Finally, Tom's mother had the sense to retrieve Tom from the kitchen where he had been hanging out with the men folk. He was brought in like some witness for the prosecution. "Tom!" his grandmother said shifting her attention from me but keeping her hand firmly clenched on my now sore forearm. "Why does (PFG) think we aren't doing Secret Santa?" Tom looked horrified. "Oh shit," he turned to me "Oh babes, I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you. They decided to do it." Later, Tom explained to me that the family decided to do Secret Santa as well as get presents for everyone. "So what does the name drawing mean?" I asked. "Well if you draw someone's name you get that person the three special presents" he explained. "So basically, I have to get three presents for whoever I pick and I have to get presents for everyone else, same as usual, in addition to those presents. Wow. That's fucking great. Thanks for telling me." And so Very Secret Santa, a new tradition, was born.

I drew and got Tom's mother. For the rest of the night and all through the holiday season, I was asked repeatedly by Tom's female relatives if I was ok with Secret Santa and told that if I didn't want to do it they could always tell everyone who wanted to that I didn't want to and we wouldn't do it.

Tom and I fought about his family at least once a week in the run up to christmas. I had an epiphany after so much forced contemplation about why I was so critical of his family. I realized I was mad at them for having dropping the ball repeatedly and in big ways when Tom had been sick the year before. That alone would have been ok I guess, I could have seen them as a hands off kind of family. Except that they expected nearly precognitive adherence to the constantly shifting manifestations of family convention and expectation when it came to stuff like buying christmas presents. As each new round of family Simon Says came up, it only reinforced my perception of them as largely selfish people who mistook control for intimacy and who believed unquestioning conformity to trivial superficial details was a sign of affection and respect.

The realization hit me one day while Tom and I were driving to school together and arguing about his family. After we had finished up for the day, we met at the coffee shop near the campus garage. We were having the usual reconcilliation talk, the one where we were genuinely apologetic for hurting one another's feelings, where we tried to explain what we really meant and not what we sounded like we meant. I communicated the gist of my epiphany to Tom. I was quite happy that I had realized the source of my frustration with his family because I felt like it put it in perspective. I hoped talking about it would be a first step on the path to putting our relationship back together again after the serious shake ups it had gone through. Tom was not impressed. He told me "It sounds like you're saying you didn't get thanked enough."

Not thanked enough for doing everything that I did to take care of Tom while he had been in and out of the emergency room and hospital during a lengthy diagnosis of gallbladder disease the year before. Not thanked enough for taking care of him in his extremely demanding post-op state while I myself was still recovering from neuro-Lyme. Not thanked enough for trying repect his parents' stated desire to "help out" and be kept up to date on his progress through what seemed like one medical mishap after another only to find that when I called them, they had left on another vacation or couldn't come to the phone because they were too drunk. Not thanked enough for listening while he complained about his family and being supportive of his building early adult conflicts with them. Yeah Tom, I thought, I didn't get thanked enough. That's what this is all about.

It sounds corny and cliche, but here's what it felt like. When he said that, I felt a cold wind blowing through me. I felt like someone had opened a window inside me and the ice and snow had come blasting in, coating everything with brittle sparkly frost. Grief came late to warm me up. At that moment though, I was all and only cold.

Which brings me to this picture, taken only a few days after that conversation. It was one of the most excruciating christmases I've ever had. I removed myself from his family as much as possible. This picture is of me and Tom (played by Mr. Kutcher) at his parent's house in my very brief christmas appearance that year. I spent most of the party outside smoking, listening to the snow squeak and crunch beneath my feet, and counting the sparkly far away stars. Before I left that night, Tom's parents insisted on a picture of me and Tom in front of the family christmas tree. While I was working with this photo today, I noticed two things. One is that Tom looks very stiffly posed. The other is that I look less like I'm smiling and more like I'm clenching my teeth.

Arts and crafts

I think I forgot to post about this but I met my ex's new girlfriend last week. He brought her to a dissertation defense party. Although we spoke several times that day (he was on campus for the defense), he didn't mention it to me. He did, however, corner my poor friend S___ to ask her if she thought I'd be ok with it. So there I am at the party, having a cigarette with S___ and A___ in the driveway when S___ tells me about it...in passing, as part of another conversation. My reaction? "Huh? What? He's bringing her...here? Now? Shit."

The nice surprising thing was that he downgraded. She's not a beast but she's no prize winning beauty. She has pretty much all of my negative physical characteristics (too pale, boring coloring, not an exceptional body) and then some (flat wide ass, bad bone structure, no style what so ever). What I could see of a personality was not impressive either. I summed her up as a humorless sourpuss with an ass like an ibook. This really did make me feel better.

So today, I was thinking today about what to do with some ex junk I still have lying around. I took care of the physical evidence of the ex, but in this age we have other closets to clean out after a break up. A scan through your hard drive while trying to free up space can be a mine field of heartaches in the year after a break up. What to do with the pictures lurking my computer? I could just delete them but that's not very satisfying. I decided this evening I should use them creatively. For example, here is a picture of me and Antonio Banderas starring as "My Ex".

(note to cjblue - tell Polina that Antiono is MINE, and now I have the picture to prove it)

For funny stuff of more broad appeal, go here . God I love Will Ferrell's baby Bush impressions. Thanks to Kate for this clip of Bush on Global Warming(s).

Who's your daddy?

Apparently I and all other women (all, you hear me!? Every last one of us, regardless of culture, sexual orientation, and upbringing) have been PROGRAMMED to look for certain traits in possible mates and dates. Yep. That's right ladies. We've done been programmed, not socially as most of you rebellious gals might be thinking, but by Evolution.
Specialists said evolution has apparently programmed women to recognize men who might be interested in propagating the species by raising a family.
(Full story available here)

The persistent media presentation of Evolution makes me think of the MCP in Tron. Anyone remember that movie? I do. 'Cause Jeff Bridges definitely looks like he's good daddy material.

BTW, for those who are interested but won't click the link: the sample size was 29, all women between 18 and 20. According to the news story, these young women were asked to rate photos of men on the qualities ''likes children," ''masculine," ''physically attractive," and ''kind." Well clearly this study is flawed since they left out "has a big throbbing cock".

Sugar on Shit, or Underinsuring Is Not a Solution

Today, I stumbled across a short, poorly written (and researched) news story on a bill proposed by US Senator Enzi (R, Wyoming) that risks obliterating some of the hard won minimum mandatory coverage laws at the state level. The bill - "The Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act" should really be called "The You Can Put Sugar On Shit But That Don't Make It A Donut Act". It came from the US Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which Senator Enzi co-chairs.

I spent some time today researching this bill, then I spent some more time writing to my senators begging them to defeat it.

One of the most salient features of S. 1955 "The Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act” is that it could remove or weaken coverage for medical services which are mandated in many states. Currently, quite a few states have laws which mandate coverage for certain medical services. Some examples are mammographies for breast cancer screening (49 states), colorectal exams for prostate cancer screening (22 states), and cervical cancer screening (29 states). Other examples of state based mandatory coverage include: well child check ups and immunizations, same sex partner benefits, breast reconstruction post mastectomy, post partum hospital stays, treatment of neuro-lyme disease, access to chiropractors, and prescription contraceptives. There's a nice by state list here given in terms of what mandatory benefits could be lost under the provisions of S. 1955.

Having done some health insurance lobbying for graduate assistants at the state level in CT, I know that many of us take our state's mandatory coverage policies for granted. Often, people don't even realize that coverage for our glucose monitors or pap smears are considered hedonistic luxuries by our insurance carriers. But if you live in a state that does NOT have mandatory coverage for a service you need, you do realize it fast. If you're faced with an insurance change where something you need is unexpectedly not covered, you realize it fast.

More of us may find ourselves realizing it fast if the "Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act” (S.1955) passes. The bill is being promoted as a way to provide insurance to more people by
(A) the creation of "small business health plans" and
(B) the "modernization of the health insurance marketplace".

Let's take a closer look at those goals.

A) What are "Small Business Health Plans"? Small Business Health Plans (or SBHPs) are a good idea in theory. The S. 1955 bill summary defines them as "group health plans sponsored by trade, industry, professional, chamber of commerce or similar business associations". The idea is that small business owners would be able to pool together into larger groups and buy affordable (for the business) coverage for their employees. That sounds nice, doesn't it?

But wait, there's more! These SBHPs would be overseen at the federal level by the Secretary of Labor. This measure would effectively move regulation of access to health care (such an intimate thing) for people covered by the SBHPs a massive step away, in the competent hands of the federal government. So if you had to appeal a decision by your insurance carrier under a Small Business Health Plan, you'd be looking, quite literally, at having to make a federal case. We need only consider some of the past year's headlines to see how well the inner offices of the federal government manage their - um, I mean our - business (here's a small set of examples 1, 2, 3, 4).

Too bad for the people who would be covered by the SBHPs, right? If you're thinking this, you're silly, just silly. Because S. 1955 would also allow "other plans to be treated as small business health plans under certain circumstances." You have to wonder what those circumstances might be. Does that mean my NON-Small Business Health insurance Plan could become treated as if it were an SBHP "under some circumstances"?

B) "Modernization of the health insurance marketplace" is the nail in the coffin, the straw on the camel. It takes the cake with the cherry on the sundae. I must admit, I can barely understand some of the summarized provisions. And god help me my eyes feel like they will bleed when I look at the bill text. BUT....Here's what is 100% clear even to my extremely ignorant and naive browsings. Part of the "modernization" means the creation of a set of coverage requirements that would be mandatory for all of these plans, in every state. The set of mandatorily covered benefits would be created by looking at existing mandatory coverage laws in all states. Under S. 1955, the newly created Small Business Health Plans and any plan treated like a Small Business Health Plan would only have to cover services that are mandated in 45 out of 50 states. If your state mandates coverage for something that even 44 other states also mandate, then you are out of luck. No more guarantee of coverage for you. I hope your kid doesn't really need well child check ups.

Here's a real world example. Fewer than 45 states mandate that diabetic supplies (e.g., glucose monitors) and diabetes education (e.g. nutrional counseling, insulin pump instruction) be covered. Thus, even in states that mandate coverage of diabetic supplies or diabetes education, the SBHP-type insurance would not have to cover diabetic supplies or diabetes education.
Or pap smears, or prostate cancer screening, or ovarian cancer screening, or contraceptives, or hospice care, or substance abuse treatment, or home health care, or well child care, or second opinions, or ambulance transportation, or bone density screening, or minimum mastectomy stays, or late stage lyme disease treatment, or rehab services, or hearing aids, or special formulas, or prosthetics...
Go here for a state by state list of mandated benefits that would be at risk in SBHPs under S. 1955.

Underinsuring people is a simply horrible idea. It's not just horrible for the uninsured, the people the bill's creators claim it will help. Underinsurance sucks universally because it drops the standards of insurance for everyone in the "insurance marketplace". Lower insurance coverage leads to lower standards of care. This can happen indirectly, but in the case of this bill it is sensible to be concerned about it happening directly. Even if the "circumstances" under which a non-SBH insurance Plan could be treated as an SBHP were to be very narrowly defined, the bill still includes language for extending SBHP privileges such as dumping state mandated coverage to nonSBHPs.

Further (and this is going to sound so utilitarian, in the most negative way), consider that providing people with shitty insurance that skimps mostly in the preventative (or preventable disease) care means you have just put into the health insurance population a pool of people who are pretty much guaranteed to be at higher risk for developing expensive health problems than well insured folks are. Early diagnosis, education about and access to tools for self care, good post-op or post procedure care, multiple treatment options, home health care for acutely or chronically disabled individuals, and accessibility to routine physical exams and vaccinations all help healthy people stay healthy and help keep health problems manageable. Underinsured people have less access to all of these services. Therefore, an outcome of a lack of access to services such as these is an increased risk of becoming sick enough to require hospitalization, surgery, and other very expensive health care use. There are only two option in this sort of scenario. Shared burden of these individuals (spread out to all health insurance consumers) or dumping of more covered services. The financial and social costs of a measure like this make it completely untenable as a solution.

Why is this not obvious to the people who sponsored this bill? Oh I don't know. Maybe they have other things on their minds. The graphs below each S. 1955 co-sponsor's name show contributions by sector (in thousands) to that senator. With a few exceptions, the longest lines are associated with contributions from the insurance sector. You can look this information up for yourself at a marvelous website called OpenSecrets.org
Sen Allard, Wayne (CO)

Sen Burns, Conrad R. (MT)

Sen Burr, Richard (NC)

Sen Cornyn, John (TX)

Sen Craig, Larry E. (ID)

Sen Nelson, E. Benjamin (NE)

Sen Roberts, Pat (KS)

Well that's it. My day has been consumed by this. I hope that you don't let the effort go to waste. If you live in the US, this is your issue. Do what you can. Activism is very very easy. You don't need to call your senator and speak to her personally. You know who you get if you call your US Senator's office number? A staff member who takes your name, address, and a (very) short message like "Tell Senator So and So that I don't support Bill 1955, the one about the health insurance. Thank you." If you'd prefer to remain remote, e-mail your senator (find senator by name or by state). The ones with "Class I" listed next to their names are the ones up for re-election this year. Defintely write to them. Activism can be conversation. Talk about it to your friends, families, coworkers, people you interact with during your day.

Oh. I have one more graph. It's Senator Enzi's by sector totals from 2001 to 2006 .