CUT OFF AT THE KNEES, THE TRUE NATURE OF 'COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM'

CUT OFF AT THE KNEES, THE STORY OF A MENTAL COLLAPSE AND THE TRUTH OF 'COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE'

It was the biggest headache I'd ever had. Or that's what I thought at the time. When it persisted, Susan, my wife, insisted that we go to the emergency room.
“Sam,” she said. “This isn't normal. There could be something seriously wrong.”
Well, it turned out there was something seriously wrong.
“You have inflammation of the brain,” my doctor informed me. “If untreated, it could prove fatal, although the more likely outcome is to be locked inside yourself in a coma like state, more or less, although there will be periods when you are aware of what's going on but will still be unable to participate.”
My world was collapsing around me, I thought death sounded like the preferable alternative to that, although since I'd just met Susan a year ago and we'd only been married for three months, I hadn't really planned on that either.
“Sam,” my doctor, Dr. Lucy Collestub brought me out of my dark musings. “It's completely treatable, so none of that will happen. The new treatment now available has a very high success rate. I'm just obligated to let you know all possibilities.”
“So how much will the treatment cost,” I ask. “Because I'm sure my insurance won't pay for it if it's a new treatment.”
“They have to,” said Susan. “It's the law now.”
“So it is,” I say, suddenly remembering the new law that puts the patient before profits. “So what is the treatment, Dr. Collestub?”
“It's Lucy,Sam. We've known each other too long for that kind of formality. The treatment is two-fold. We'll operate as soon as possible to relieve the swelling itself. But then there is a six month series of. . .treatments, for want of a better term, to ensure that it does not return. We should schedule that surgery for as soon as possible.”
We ended up scheduling the surgery for exactly three weeks from that day, with the 'treatments' to start a week later. But then, a week and two days before the surgery, I got the letter from my two Republican Senators and one Republican House Member.
“Dear Sam,” it read, for I had made substantial enough donations to all of their campaigns that we were mutually on a first name basis. “We regret to inform you that your surgery and follow up treatment have been canceled. Since they would not have been paid for before this new law, and we feel the new law is an illegal one, we are preventing treatment under it where possible so that when we undo it there will not be people that had things covered that they shouldn't have so that there will be no shocks. Please destroy this letter as soon as you've read it so that this information doesn't get out. Sincerely...”
I stopped. There was nothing sincere about any of this,, except that when I called Lucy and the hospital they confirmed that there had been an order from our Congressional Delegation to cancel my treatment that apparently had the force of law even though it was just them, and like that my fate was sealed. I couldn't believe it. I was a lifelong Republican and had supported all of them financially and at the voting booth very well and numerous times, yet now when I had a problem, they were cutting me off at the knees to ensure that the new law on health insurance did not gain sight among the people as beneficial. For the first time I myself began to see how beneficial it could be and to regret having railed so against it myself when it was just 'those lazy people that don't want to work' who had wanted it, for I had worked my whole life and was certainly not lazy. I began to consider that maybe many who would benefit from this law were not lazy, and might just have preexisting health conditions like my concussion of many years ago, which was why brain treatment would not have been covered under the old law, and for other reasons beyond their control and that a law saying insurance companies can't do that is a good idea.
On one of the days when I was having such musings, I felt a great pain in my entire head, particularly my face, and suddenly found that I could no longer speak or even blink voluntarily. During the last few weeks, Susan and Lucy and I have tried repeatedly to contact our members of Congress to get them to reconsider, or to get a court to overrule them, all without any result. On the day that my brain collapsed to all outside interactions except occasionally being able to type, as I am now typing my story, we received word that one judge had sided with us, but the other two judges on the panel had declined to hear the case, so even that was not an actual ruling in our favor, not that it would matter now anyway, for the treatment was only preventative, not curative once this has happened. So I'm locked inside myself for life except for brief periods when I can type as I'm typing this story, but this ends this story, which is good since this period of even being able to type I can feel coming to. . .

My husband intended to type 'an end' here, but his hands seized up before he could. Where is your compassion now, conservatism?

She finishes with an unintelligible curse, and that's the end of this story as it was received.