Dear Mister Congressman

I'm not sure if you're a Democrat or a Republican. I'm not sure if you're for health care reform or against it. I'm not even sure what the details of the proposed plans are, but I'm pretty sure that the conservative spin-makers calling it "socialized" and painting it with communist overtones are trying to shove bullshit down our throats.

I don't have healthcare. I'm 28 years old, I never got a degree, and despite the fact that I work full time for VCU, I'm not eligible for employee coverage. I doubt that I can afford private health care, but it's not as if I've made the effort to look into it. After all, I'm much too busy poisoning myself with alcohol and playing video games to really care.

I might be okay for another ten years, but one day when I'm forty-two and I suddenly find out that I've had rectal cancer for a decade, I'm going to wonder why I didn't make more of an effort to pay visits to a doctor. Oh, wait, I know: it's because even though I'm a young, attractive white male, I'm still not offered the best opportunities in America. The sad part is, even if I had gone to MCV for regular checkups, they'd have done their best to get my ass out of the office and back onto the street in such short time that my real problems would have either been misdiagnosed or looked over entirely.

The people who benefit from health insurance profits want us to think that government involvement in our health care system will suddenly turn our hospitals into Russian chop shops. They want us to believe that we have the "best health care system in the world," but what does a vague blanket-statement like that even mean? Staunch supporters of the Right won't even bother to ask that question; they just nod in agreement with blind faith and hoot affirmations that could rival the testaments of a Baptist choir.

No, the pervading truth is that our system has major flaws, and as long as it's being plundered by a money-hungry system, it's only going to become more and more neglectful. Face facts: being paid lots of money does not make the quality of your product higher. This is the myth that perpetuates the system we currently have in place, and it's time to prove that it isn't true. I took a trip to Toronto, and I certainly didn't see city streets littered with the dying bodies of the sick. I saw people who got the medical attention they needed in an acceptable time frame and who didn't have to mortgage a house in order to pay for it.

The Right likes to think that if they put the responsibility of going out and solving our own health insurance problems on our shoulders, it will encourage us to do so. Unfortunately, our society has convinced us to spend our time being much too busy drinking beer, watching Heroes and getting laid to give a fuck. Americans can't completely take care of themselves. Even those of us who know we're not doing a good enough job still don't have the motivation (or money) to actually go out and do it.

Long story short: whatever this "health care reform" is, it can't be any worse than what I have now. If you don't support it, change your mind. If you already do, stop being such a wimp about it and sock it back to the fearmongering liars who keep spreading disinformation.