7-10 million Americans live abroad

Last night I went to “Sick and Broke: A Conversation About Health Care with Elizabeth Edwards” at GW hosted by Campus Progress. Before I go into it, I just want to say how much I love Campus Progress – during the summer, they have their interns compete in a “Free-Food-a-Thon,” and the intern who scores the most (and best) free food wins. It’s inspiring, I tell you. I modeled my strategy in Denver (where I managed to eat for free almost every day of the convention) off of the wisdom gleaned from their blogs. They also keep a daily calendar of free events going on in DC, and offer pretty great speakers and trainings. Amazing. But I digress.

The talk was really interesting – healthcare is not really my forte, so it was nice to get an introduction to the basic problems facing the system. Let’s face it – my mom works for the federal government, we’ve always had healthcare, it’s always covered what we needed, and what it didn’t cover, we could afford to pay for ourselves. I’d never given it more thought than having a vague impression that the healthcare system sucks. Why did I think that? Because everyone else said it.

But Elizabeth Edwards and Ezra Klein, the moderator, touched on everything from the candidates’ healthcare policies to the differences between the employer market for health insurance and the individual market, to potential ways to make healthcare less expensive. It all boiled down to one question asked by an audience member:

Is health insurance

A) a commodity people should be able to afford

B) a responsibility of the individual to take care of

or

C) a right?

Edwards was C, all the way. She called providing affordable healthcare our “moral obligation.” I don’t know if I’d go that far. (Gosh, how Republican of me. Shhhh.) But when the insured are paying an average of $900 extra a year to relieve costs incurred from treating the uninsured, it does seem like everyone benefits when more people are insured. And if people aren’t able to provide for their own, maybe the government should step in, within reason. (Phew, that’s more like it.)

She also strongly supported reforming comprehensive healthcare policies to include more preventative care, early intervention treatments, and diagnostic tests. Which makes sense. Even though it might be more expensive the first few years to pay for yearly mammograms for younger women who would ordinarily put off the test instead of paying for it themselves, in the long run, it could save a lot of money in cancer treatments. But then again, who decides when a test or treatment is overkill? Patient? Doctor? Insurance company? Government?

It’s also interesting how the healthcare issue affects other national problems. Apparently, half of foreclosures are related to homeowners with healthcare-related economic problems – not a bad subprime mortgage. It’s also hard to assign blame. Take obesity in poor communities. Obesity is expensive – it leads to diabetes, heart disease, stroke, just to name a few costly conditions. It’s easy to say people are obese because they eat unhealthy food. But if they’re on foodstamps, it’s hard to buy expensive, healthy food. Plus, supermarkets in poor communities aren’t exactly known for their stellar selection of fruits and veggies. Which have to be shipped, refrigerated, and go bad rather quickly. Not very cost effective.

I think the highlight, though, was when one question mentioned “socialized healthcare,” and the moderator, who was reading the question, said, “Oh look, John McCain is in the room. He’s in the back, so you can’t see him because he’s so short.” Which was hilarious in itself, of course – but what was even better was when a woman in front of me turned around to look. Really? Really?

It’s unfortunate. I get way too attached to blogging. Oh, it’s all right at first – I’m excited that I’ll have a record, a way to bring everything back once an experience is over. It’s nice to think I’m entertaining an audience (however small), and I try to do my best to keep things interesting.

Then, I start narrating my life in my head. It took me weeks, if not months, to break the habit when I stopped updating my old livejournal, and within days of starting this blog, I was at it again. I write, and rewrite, posts in my head – posts that by the time I actually get around to typing up, I’ve lost all interest in. And it’s kind of annoying, keeping up a running monologue in my own mind as I’m trying to live my life. Have you ever gotten sick of the sound of your own thoughts?

I start to feel supremely guilty if I don’t update as much as I should. Which, let’s face it, is all the time. And especially with this blog, I feel so much pressure to keep the posts short, informative, and entertaining all at once. In other words, no 3,500 word emotional avalanches about the minutiae of my life. Which I’m more than capable of producing, trust me. Or just do some googling, if you don’t want to take my word for it.

The self-censorship becomes draining in itself – I haven’t expressed my thoughts in this format in over two years. And it really is rather cathartic. So once I start writing about one part of my life (work, in this case), I start wanting to post about everything I’m feeling. It’s hard to stem the flow. But then again, is there anything else I’ve had more practice with?

I know, I know, there are no rules, and I’m free to make this space whatever I want. I’m not even getting a grade. But the perfectionist in me wants this blog to be, well, perfect. Oh well, I’m just indulging my angsty side. Probably because I lost two posts from earlier this week in the server crash. See what I mean? I’m way too attached – it’s not like they were earth-shattering, soul-baring, deeply insightful posts, or anything.

Perhaps I’ll change the background, though, to make it a little less formal around here. And who knows, I may even give posting the personal stuff a try.

Edited to add: Unfortunately, I don’t like any of the other backgrounds as much, mostly because I think this layout has the widest text box, and I think it makes the posts look shorter. I’m a fan of minimizing scrolling. I do really like Ocadia, though. Thoughts?