A mile....

After feeling pretty good most days since surgery, I woke up today feeling pain, with sharp aches in my stomach and breast if i moved wrong. Perhaps I have been doing too much: walking a mile yesterday and participating in too many organizational projects may be part of the problem (others did the heavy lifting - literally - but I probably have been bending and using my stomach muscles more than I should have). Or it could be the sudden change in weather. But the sadness seems mainly related to the Massachusetts election and what it means for health care reform.

I know people are angry that things don't seem to be getting done/or too much money is being spent. And while the stereotype of Massachusetts is all elitist liberals in Boston and Cambridge, it's a diverse place with lots of blue collar workers and, unfortunately, many people out of work. This is a place that has regularly voted for Republican governors. And I can't believe a candidate for office in MA can know less about Boston sports legends than I do. Would it have killed Coakley to help that guy up or shake some hands? But weren't these people out in the streets this summer mourning Teddy Kennedy's passing in the pouring rain? This wasn't a perfect bill, but this was in part his dream.

I can't help thinking this is going to turn into yet another missed opportunity to reform health care and insure more folks. Yes, the bill isn't perfect and the process has been ugly and MA basically was going to have to pay a lot of money and get very little in return as they ALREADY had better coverage than the federal proposal. The bill was written so states that had made the most progress in insuring low-income folks were given the least cash. Yes, you did the right thing in the past so we might as well penalize you for it.

And I keep thinking about Rani, the uninsured woman who was diagnosed 4 months after me and passed away right after Christmas. Yes, she might have delayed going to the doctor anyway, or her cancer may have been aggressive and the outcome could have been the same. But I just keep coming back to the statistics and the fact that low-income people seem to die at much higher rates than higher-income people from the same diseases and lack of coverage and early treatment must play a role.

Maybe people in DC will take this as an anti-business as usual mandate and maybe there can be some actual bipartisanship or reform, but I don't think so. The republicans are gleeful and I am not sure what the dems are doing.

So, apparently the MA voters managed to do what the Haiti earthquake had not, depressed me so much that I have turned off NPR.

The best discussion of the race was on the Daily Show two days ago.

And just because it was on last night and makes me happy - you can watch the Colin Firth interview too.