Thursday, September 3, 2009

Health Care Reform

I have alot of guilt these days regarding how woefully uninformed I am on the hot political issues. This health care thing alarms me. It concerns me. It certainly affects me.

My day started with a few health care issues of its own.

Its 7:15am and the father rolls out of bed to answer the calls from our littlest one. Its his turn to get up with the kids. Now mind you, 7:15am is no big sacrifice and we both know it. We have always had good sleepers at our house. It's possible that many of the health care issues facing parents of small children these days might be aided by some lessons on how to get your children to sleep... but nevertheless, its his turn. So I pull the covers up one more time and close my eyes for what will undoubtedly be the last 3 minutes of rest I get today and the 3 year old tiptoes to the side of the bed and whispers "Mom. Can I snuggle you?" Of course! Cute thing that she is, still crusty from sleep and wrinkled on the face. In she climbs and puts her face next to mine with the cutest little grin. Then the nose wrinkles up and she says...

"Mama. Your breath smells like the end of the world." promptly rolls off the side of the bed and walks out. Seriously. Where does a 3 year old learn that kind of thing. Television? Probably from the 5 year old. That was the first health care issue of my day.

Our own hot debate about health care began over breakfast when the 5 year old started trying to negotiate a bandaid for the tiniest little red pin prick of a wound...not going to happen. "But Mom, I neeeeeeed a Band-aid. I might gush blood all over your couch." Although I do appreciate her lobbying on behalf of our furniture, my position was not swayed and there was no concession on the Band-aid debate.

An attempt at health care reform came in the way of a small crisis this afternoon, when the littlest one was running a low grade fever and I had the notion to give her a little Motrin before her nap. Not one single medicine dropper could be found anywhere in the house so instead of the calling the neighbor who is an RN and would certainly have brought me a medicine dropper or carefully administered the correct dosage of fever reducing elixir, I carefully read the label, located an adult sized medicine cup and handed over the tiny vessel of sticky potion to a tired crabby infant. She took the cup, put it near her mouth and proceeded to dump most of it on herself and the oriental rug. The snaggle dog ran over, got her own portion of Motrin, I yelled, ran for wet towels and resolved that it was going to take more than one illness to convert our current system of medicine delivery.

Wise words for those folks in Washington.

Truly I do try and make a daily visit to one of several websites that will give me the headlines in bullet points so I can try and get as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time but then some little girl comes over and pushes the esc key, or spills something, or hits someone, or the phone rings, or the dog goes crazy because the neighbor kid is at the door and wants to play, or someone needs a diaper change, or the buzzer for the dryer goes off, or any one of 800 other things that steals me away.

I voted for him because I believed he could direct us towards change and I feel guilty that I'm not as well informed as I used to be. But my most pressing health care issue is a daily debate about exactly how serious a wound is and whether it needs a banadge or it will heal on its own. The biggest reform issue facing my small circle involves the manner in which the cure is delivered.

Hmm...maybe I'm not as out of the loop as I feel...

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