Ouch!

I feel like I am becoming a prime example of why we need health care reform in this country. I lost my health insurance (the one that cost me about $150 a month from the university) in mid-August.

Now I have noticed that when I jog or go for a long (over a half hour) walk, pain radiates around my right foot. That's the same foot that I dropped a box on a month ago when we were moving. But the toe itself doesn't hurt, it just looks a little swollen.

I have also had a mystery abdominal pain today. I am assuming it's because I ate some bad fish or something, but the thought of not being able to get any of this checked out unless I suffer a bureaucratic nightmare with the public assistance office bugs me. So I have pretty much put off looking into that. But I am going to have to, on Tuesday.

It's probably psychological, but these little mystery ailments are annoying me. So is the fact that so many selfish people in this country would rather see others suffer than pay an extra penny of tax money. Even though their own health care could improve, and they might not ever have to pay more for it. I just think that people who are comfortable and who have money forget what it's like to not have much, or never have experienced that at all.

A former classmate of mine indicated in a facebook post that people were doing "risk assessment" to decide whether the risk of having a health problem was worth paying for health insurance. However, his equation is based on his own experience as the child of an attorney, who has never been impoverished or without insurance in his whole life. And future leaders like my classmates are the ones that could be setting policy in this country in the years to come. And that scares me more than pain in my foot or tummy ever could.