One year on … Ode for the broken wrist and the crisis of our healthcare system

It’s one whole year today since the fateful day that someone broke my wrist.

Maybe it is a good thing that I don’t even remember who it was and precisely how it happened. All I was doing is blocking a close range shot and ‘snap.’ The rest is history. A minute after I got off the field writhing in pain, the opposition scored. I should have just let the ball go in, but that is not who I am as a person.

Is it better yet? For the most part. I am a stronger and healthier person today. But I won’t lie and say that it doesn’t hurt or that I can do everything with it. This is life — people write with their toes because they don’t have arms; I should get over it. What I cannot get over is the fact that even with health insurance, there is not much that could have been done.

This is the United States of America–supposedly the most advanced country in the world. But if there is one thing that is as backwards as the immigration system, it is the horrible healthcare infrastructure. 46 million are uninsured with countless others underinsured and President Obama is gutless to the point of retreating from his promise of single-payer healthcare in the face of the insurance lobby. It does not matter that we foot the cost for the uninsured or that our system of healthcare and insurance is worse than most other post-industrial countries. Even Mexico has attempted to implement universal health care, but President Obama and his insurance cohorts would like us to believe that it is not an option.

At least there is one Democrat politician that I can actually relate to sometimes. As a blogger and academic that stands in opposition to unnecessary binaries, I say stop making us think that there are only two options and put single-payer healthcare on the table.