Written by Donna Smith

Susan Boyle sings on CNN. Life marches on. Richard Holbrooke is dead. Rest in peace, Ambassador. It is said you put up a valiant fight. Here I sit in Kansas City. No one knows I am alone; no one would grieve if I should die. No breaking news here. Just an American with no standing. Just an American no one really cares about.

I want this to end. I want healthcare to be a public good not a private commodity. It is a private good too, but we seem to have to fight the reality over and over again.

I do not want my doctors and nurses to begrudgingly provide me care on faith that my insurance or Larry’s supplemental will pay. I want care. Period. I want Christmas back.

I don’t want Congress to waste time repealing Obamacare, though I do not support insurance purchase mandates. I want Congress to believe in and pass an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1935 and extend Medicare to all. Simple. Elegant. Work to amend and protect later. Now make it real.

Let’s pass it and then fix it and make it what we want it to be. Medicare for all. Peace for all. Christmas for all.

Just do it. Extend Medicare to all. Improve it. Expand it. Demand it. Public financing and private delivery. Healthcare for all. Cut the bull. Spare me the explanations. Just do the math. And then pass healthcare for all. Medicare for all. And then let’s go to work making it what it needs to be.

Onward, my friends. Onward. And maybe someday soon I’ll be home with Larry, and hugging him and loving him before the final curtain calls. Larry, I love you. I love you. And someday I’ll spend my days with you and resting my head on your chest. The safest place I have ever known on this earth. First the love of a newlywed and then the adoration of your wife and partner for 35 years. My life is your life. My peace is your peace. My failure is your failure and then your love and comfort all over again.

One single standard of high quality care for all. Trailer trash. High roller condo owners. Onward, my friends. Let’s just get this done. For our economic health; for our public health; for our middle class health; for our national economic health. Onward. Push through the craziness and allow moms and dads and wives and husbands and regular folks own the reality and the love. It’s time to fight for each other.

Merry Christmas. Come home and love your home enough to protect it. Peace. Frenzied peace on earth. Love. Love. Love. Merry Christ-mass. Christ. Love. Merry birth. Healing for all. And peace for all, goodwill on earth. Don’t shoot more animals to prove substance. Produce substance. Health. Peace on earth as protected by all.

Love in practice. Merry Christmas.
_______
Donna Smith, American SiCKO

About the author

Donna Smith is a community organizer for the California Nurses Association and National Co-Chair for the Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.