Warm Rain

I live in Louisville Kentucky, out on the edge of the older part of the city in a place called the Highlands. Unless you are on a high floor of a tall building you would never know how high the Highlands really are. There are no up and down hills. With everything built up, it seems you are on flat ground of about the same elevation as the nearby city center.

I have been writing on other things today while watching the Health Care Reform Bill debate in the House of Representatives in Washington. People who oppose the reform are cat calling at people in favor of the reform. All the ugliness of bigotry is shouted when a Representative walks near the crowd. Although no one in the hate filled group will ever admit it, I know they have friends and family who have suffered because of the greed of health insurance companies. If there is coverage for the poor and the middle class, I know there are people in the crowd today who cannot imagine not being insured, who will only get health care in their later life because of this reform.


I have friends who are against this bill. They have insurance because they have jobs or were retired from jobs where the large corporation or the government has a great health care plan. One of my friends in a discussion this past week told me she was happy about her current health care. She was treated for breast cancer. Her husband has chronic illness and has been in treatment for it for decades. The only thing that worries them is the eventual cap on coverage. I told her that the current plan for reform requires insurance companies to pay out 80% of premiums collected for all those on the plan and there will be no caps for covered people.


Another friend had to take bankruptcy because she was uninsured after a divorce. Her illness was not chronic. She prays she will get insurance with this reform because she can't take bankruptcy again so soon.


My belief about health insurance is there should be no profit making insurance carriers. The best way to handle this is a single payer plan. Everyone should pay health insurance premiums.


I wrote this poem this evening:

Rain falls in the evening, and a long
Smear wets the glass of a window.
Though it is nighttime here I see
Across the yard a reflection
In the light from inside the house.

Stepping outside I feel warm air and
The dampness of the night is more
Than refreshing as I breathe in the
Scent of growing green spreading
Across the field into the distance.

Though rain will continue tomorrow and
Snow will dust the green the day after,
Spring has arrived to the Bluegrass and
There are reports of hat making class and
Horses train again for the Derby.

March 21, 2010