Here She Goes - All Political Again

Here I sit with my heart literally pounding away in my chest, getting all riled up about Supreme Court decisions. I'd joke and say that it's too early on a Monday morning to be up in arms about such things - but the truth is that is isn't. It's never too early to feel passionately about issues that really matter, and you're never too young (or old!) to start caring.

The Supreme Court started handing out decisions like free candy today, and I was reading my twitter feed watching them come in while rocking El to sleep this morning. Then I saw something along the lines of an announcement that they will announce their ruling on the Affordable Care Act on Thursday at 10am. I thought for a moment that I read it will happen today at 10am, and started shaking with nerves and literally feeling ill at the prospect of what could happen if this gets overturned. Then I realized that we have several more days to wait, and instead of the nerves settling down, I realized it's possible I might be feeling this way for several days. 

I refuse to call this act Obamacare, which I believe is a phrase intended to be derogatory. This is one of President Obama's signature achievements since taking office, and I can remember quite literally crying (and blogging) about the possibility of it not coming to fruition in the wake of Teddy Kennedy's passing, and then quite literally cheering and celebrating at it's passage. Millions of additional Americans' access to health insurance is on the line. Vital preventative care coverage for women and children. Allowance of adult children to be covered by their parents for just a bit longer. No longer allowing insurance companies to deny people with preexisting conditions. Almost every single person I know would benefit from the ACA (not to mention the 50+ million Americans living without coverage, or the millions living with coverage but experiencing rapidly rising costs and diminishing coverage). 

This is personal. I challenge any person who thinks that this doesn't or won't affect them or their families to do some research and think again. Last week I found myself on the phone with my insurance company, and after hanging up the phone and thinking to myself about how we are on a budget, and is it really worth spending another hundred or so dollars to get my baby's lungs checked out just to find that most likely we'd be diagnosed with another virus, and told to wait it out, I wished out loud for health care reform. And then I realized that we are lucky. We have coverage - good coverage - and our health, and some financial means. So while the ACA is not a fix-all (in my mind, doesn't go far enough...), it is a step. When we proudly assert that we are the best country in the world, we cannot, with good conscience, allow our citizens to become tragedies of a seriously broken health care system. 

Now we wait with baited breath. 

(And PS - looks like I'm not the only one in my family right now concerned with health care economics... Apparently, this is her favorite textbook. Can't blame her!)

EDITED TO ADD: Upheld. :) HUGE sigh of relief in our home yesterday, along with millions of other homes around the country. Emotional day, for sure, but I'm so proud and practically giddy with excitement at this step in the right direction.