Dear Assailant-in-Chief, Letter #4

11/19/16

Dear Assailant-in-Chief,

I went to yet another doctor's appointment this morning.  I am fortunate in that I now have a job that provides insurance, one of those flexible spending accounts, and all of that.  There have been periods of time in my life when I didn't have those things.  There have been periods of time when I was dependent on Medicaid, notably when I was fired when I got pregnant.  (They, too, viewed pregnancy as "inconvenient").  I had eclampsia when my son was born and nearly died; if I hadn't been getting weekly checkups, I would certainly be dead now and probably my son along with me.

There was also a period of time a couple of years ago when the legislature was playing politics with my job and my insurance was dropped; I had to get it through the ACA exchanges. As I am diabetic, this was not a trivial matter and even though I was able to get the care I needed, the instability of it caused me some problems.  Nerve damage from high blood sugar levels is not reversible, by the way.  I am here to say that any attempt to undermine or repeal the ACA, or to dismantle Medicare/Medicaid, means people will die. I know this for a fact.  You know this, or you should.  Paul Ryan and Mike Pence certainly know this. 

Just between you and me, I know you aren't trying to make health care better for average Americans.  You are trying to make it better for insurance companies.  That means you are putting a price on American lives, and because insurance is all about math, it's actually possible to determine what that price is.  There is an actual answer to this question:  How much profit is each person's death worth?  (As a side question, how much profit does needless suffering due to lack of preventative care translate into?  I suspect that is the real bonanza here; I'm not worth much dead, but as a potential diabetes patient on dialysis I'm probably worth hundreds of thousands). And how much of it redounds to you personally, or to Paul Ryan, or Mike Pence?  Are you benefiting directly, or are you just doing it as a favor for a friend?

Yours sincerely,

Sara Amis
Citizen of these United States of America


From Dorine Jennette:

PLEASE JOIN ME IN WRITING THE ASSAILANT-IN-CHIEF
Please join me in bombarding the Assailant-in-Chief with letters: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact. I will write to him every day through his first 100 days in office, maybe longer if momentum holds. I am asking others to write just ONE letter. Let's not just vent our grief to each other--let's speak truth to power together. Please WRITE and please SHARE this plan with your friends. Pass it on!
You do not need to be a woman or an assault survivor to address the Assailant-in-Chief as such. If you are a man who has a daughter, a sister, a wife, a woman colleague or friend you respect, or a mother (hint: that last one is all of you!), then you have something to say to the Assailant-in-Chief. Your letter might be a brief one-liner. That's great! Please send it! Women need our allies now. Here's the link to DJT's contact page--this might take you one minute or less! https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact
Or, maybe you will start a related project addressing any one of the many groups Trump has already harmed . . .
As we talk with each other, let's break the bubble and also send our complaints straight to the source. He won't read them and won't care if he does, so probably this is a placeholder action while we figure out what we're really going to do . . . but it's something.

Dorine's posts can be found here:  https://www.facebook.com/dorine.jennette