Another bright day

Dear family and friends,

We wait anxiously for the vote on health care reform today. Merwin and I have wonderful health care, covered almost 100% between Medicare and the Empire plan from my job at NCC, a state college. We think everyone should have at least as much. Many people do not realize that when those without insurance use the ER, those costs to the hospital are added on to their bills: it would be more cost-effective as well as more humane to cover everyone. Now thousands of people die each year because they do not get care in time; the ER trip is often the last resort.

On my MPD listserv (for the blood disorder I have), I read, horrified, about people who are helped by, for example, Pegasus, but whose insurance company either refuses to pay for it, or withdraws permission to use it after it has been used effectively for some months. Imagine the terror. If only health care were not linked to the workplace: it is particularly hard for small businesses, with a tiny margin of profit, to contribute to health care. Why should this method, started for altogether different business purposes, continue into the future? We should have the single-payer system, run efficiently, without a profit motive, by the government. I will say nothing about the motives of those against the current bill: let it just pass, and the country can deal with fine-tuning afterwards.

Yesterday, once everyone had left and the house was quiet. I completed (I think) my Le Harve paper and will probably email it today after a final read-through. Whew! Laury stopped over for a few minutes yesterday evening with some books I had lent her: and there was my Arden Q1/F1 Hamlet! Too bad I don't keep a list of books I lend. That edition is going to help me today when I return to my Sea essay. Lots of email to answer yesterday and today, too. It's very welcome to hear from friends and family both by phone and email.

Harvey persuaded me to forget about going out of the house today to Elliott's party (how I hate to miss parties!). Dave will come and stay here to ease Merwin's concerns about leaving me, but I think it is merely precautionary. During the night, I was able to get all the way from my recliner to the kitchen to take pills and from there to the little bathroom, and then back to the recliner—all without disturbing his sleep. An hour later, he told me in the morning, he had gotten up and passed by my recliner without waking me. So we are getting better sleep now.

With much back and forth from the master bathroom and bedroom to the little bathroom I am now using, Merwin brought me the supplies I needed to get washed from head to toe, with clean clothes too. He thinks he is getting his exercise with all the trouble he has discerning what I mean by "blue," etc. It'll be nice when I can get up the four stairs to the master bedroom. i am hoping to make it over the sill from my study where I am typing this to the deck right outside. I can see it perfectly, but it would be good to be outside for a while.

I hope all of you have a good day today! And Happy Birthday, Dorothy, my mahatanista on Arthur's side of the family.

Love,
Bernice