Over the years, I have studied politics and economics quite closely.

   I read a lot of magazines regularly.  I enjoy reading the views on both the right and the left:

   *The Colorado Freedom Report: Libertarian Journal of Politics and Culture*, *Liberty" magazine, *Reason* magazine, the Cato Institute's *Cato Journal*, etc., representing Libertarian viewpoints;

   *The American Conservative*, *The American Spectator*, *The Conservative Chronicle*, *National Review*, *Human Events*, *The Weekly Standard*, etc., representing conservative viewpoints;

   *The Nation*--Weekly journal of opinion featuring analysis on politics and culture, *Mother Jones*, *The Progressive*, *Rolling Stone*, and so on, representing the left. 

   Kind of a mixture of political viewpoints is found in *U.S. News & World Report*, *Newsweek*, and *Time*.

   Economic analysis--sometimes without and sometimes with various ideological influences--is found in *The Economist*, *The Internatonal Economy*, *World Economic Prospects Monthly Review*, *International Review of Environmental and Resource Economy*, *New England Economic Review*, *Medical Economics*.  And so on.

   I've read many political and economic books.  Some that come to mind: *The Conscience of a Conservative* by Barry Goldwater.  The classic *Wealth of Nations* by Adam Smith.  The seminal *Second Treatise of Government* by John Locke.  "Leviathan* by Thomas Hobbes.  *Notes on the Federal Convention* by James Madison.  *Why We're Liberals* edited by Eric Alterman.  *The Tempting of America* by Robert Bork.  *Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative* by David Brock.  *Unlimimted Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House* by Gary Aldrich.  Two books by Kevin Phillips: *Wealth and Democracy* and *The Politics of Rich and Poor*.  *On Liberty* by John Stewart Mill.  *Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American* by Nat Hentoff.  *Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered* by E.F. Schumacher.  *The Last Patrician: Robert Kennedy and the End of American Aristocracy* by Michael Knox Beran.  Two books by conservative John W. Dean, who was Nixon's White House Counsel: *Blind Ambition*  and *Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush*.  *American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia* edited by Jeffrey Nelson, et al.  *The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot* by Russell Kirk.  *The Conservative's Handbook: Defining the Right Position on Issues from A to Z* by Phil Valentine.  *The Heritage Guide to the Constitution* by Edwin Meese.  *The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of America* by Gus Russo.  *American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House* by Jon Meacham (Jackson stopped the first attempts to foist a Central Bank on the economic back of America).  *The Creature from Jekyll Island*  by G. Edward Griffin (which details the conspiracy that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve, and the infliction of that un-American, unconstitutional evil on the American people).  And I have read many other books as well, covering the entire spectrum of political and economic ideologies.

   But I am not going to bring forth here any of the knowledge, opinions, ideas, or arguments, from any of those publications.

   I am going to talk about the value of human life.  Each of us is an unrepeatable miracle, and each of us posseses the magical human mind, and the wondrous human brain--so similar in so many ways--and yet, in each one of us, so unique. 

   To Learn more about these, I recommend *The Mind* by Richard Restak; *The Human Brain: Its Functions and Capacities* by Isaac Asimov; *The Enchanted Loom* by Robert Jastrow; *The Dragons of Eden* by Carl Sagen; *Human: The Science Behind What Makes Your Brain Unique* by Michael S. Gazzaniga; and *The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain & Our Mind* by Sir John Eccles (nobel prize-winning author of *The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own*) and Daniel N. Robinson. 

   Human life is the most precious reality on this earth; and saving lives should transcend politics, economics, and all ideologies.

   These days, I don't read nearly as much about politics or economics as I used to.  The book I am currently reading is: *Everything You Need to Know About Cancer: In Language You Can Actually Understand* by Matthew D. Galsky, M.D.  It is very readable, often even enjoyable--and is packed with information, much of it very useful; some of it very hopeful; and some of it quite scary.  I highly recommend this knowledgeable, richly informative, often witty and humorous (in appropriate places), magnificent book--which I also found to be caring and compassionate--to anyone who needs or wants to know more about cancer.  Amazingly, it is a slim volume, quite a fast read--but it packs a powerful punch with concisely condensed and precisely worded text.

   Of course, in my case, the scary parts follow me like a shadow.

   I am reminded of a song I used to hear on college radio, with the refrain line: "The sound of ideologies clashing."  I fear and feel that I and many people like me are going to be crushed between the clashing ideologies that are facing off against each other today.

   I am reminded of a line I heard on a National Lampoon comedy album spoofing Woodstock: "Long hair--short hair--what the hell is the difference once your head is blown off?"  For me, today, I think I can revise that to: "Left-wing, right-wing: What the hell is the difference once you're dead?"

   I am also reminded of these words from the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson--speaking of inalienable RIGHTS, which, while they can be violated or neglected, cannot be nullified as rights: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  I've always noticed that LIFE comes first, and I understand why: You don't have in this world much liberty, nor pursuit of happiness, once you're dead.

   Now I think of something that one of my many admired teachers once said to a class I was in: "When you argue about politics or religion, you don't often win arguments--you usually just lose friends."

   So I'm not going to bring forth any of the political ideas, knowledge, opinions, or arguments that I know about, from my wide-ranging reading.

   I hope I'm not going to lose any friends.  I'm not here to make any arguments.  I'm just going to present some facts, from my own life.

   I've got cancer.  One doctor called it terminal; several other doctors call it incurable.  I call it the worst thing that ever happened to me--or ever could happen to me, because I have a lifelong, deep-rooted phobia about cancer, that makes this situation terrify and torment my mind, whenever I think about it.

   Having cancer makes me feel very unhappy at times, beyond consolation.  Sometimes it makes me worry and fear, beyond the comfort of any hope. 

   But what makes me worry and fear the most, is that my health-care coverage has almost been lost three times since this so-called "cancer journey" began for me.  And, with the economy the way that it is, my health-care coverage is once again in danger of being lost.  I have to use all of my wits to study the situation and try to figure out, once again, how to keep it.  Because once it's gone--it's gone. 

   For me, with this terrible "pre-existing condition," I will almost certainly never be able find again any health insurance coverage at all, let alone medical coverage that I could afford.

   Just one day of a round of tests that I had to take, last year, cost a little over three thousand dollars.  My current treatments come at a "bargain-basement price" (comparatively speaking) of eighteen hundred dollars a pop.  I have to be frequently monitored, with those hated blood draws and, still sometimes, other types of tests. 

   Even though I have managerial, supervisory, secretarial (including knowledge of Gregg short hand), and other office skills and experience--and skills of many other kinds--I have been unable to keep work in this economy.  I am still able to work; but that will cease to be so, sooner than I would like.

   I have also been a page editor and a newspaper reporter--just like my childhood hero, Superman--but lay-offs are occuring there, too.  I just saw something about a half million jobs being lost--I think it was in the last quarter, but I'm not sure. 

   My favorite job was when I worked as an assitant to a research scientist.  I aspired to become a research scientist myself, specializing in one of the various fields of neuroscience.  For a number of reasons, that dream didn't come true--but not because I didn't have the ability: I made the Dean's List, and the National Dean's List, and also was awarded membership in two Honor Societies.  I learned fast and well.

   Now my main job is to try to stay alive, and to enjoy life as much as I can, in the midst of a lot of fear and a lot of sorrow and regret, and suffering painful rejection--such as from certain former friends, once they found out I have cancer, and from my patient counselor--and hopefully to accomplish at least a few of my life's last goals, to achieve whatever I am still able to achieve.

   My treatments were guaranteed to keep my cancer in remission for at least one year.  That year expired on December 17.  Beyond that, they can stop working at any time.  Depending upon various difficult choices, and other factors beyond my choice, the best estimate I've heard is that--if time and chance and God's grace favor me--I might make it for about a decade.

   But I will not survive long if I lose my health insurance.  I will very likely not be able to get health insurance again, if I ever lose it, because I am now a money pit.  My life's preservation is sucking up some big bucks.  Keeping me alive is incredibly costly now.

   The present employer-based health insurance system has several flaws.  The chief flaw is that you can work five, ten, thirty years or more, and have nominal health coverage all that time.  I say "nominal" because you lose that coverage if you ever really, badly need it. 

   When is it that you will need medical coverage the most?  When you have suffered a life-threatening injury, or suddenly are stricken with a life-threatening illness.  But then, you probably won't be able to keep working. So--even though you had health insurance for decades when you didn't need a lot of medical care--now that you need a lot of medical care, the hour-glass is turned on your insurance coverage, and your time will be swiftly running out.

   In my case, the place I was last working full-time--as an office manager--was closed forever.  Keeping insurance since that time has been a hair-raising, and hair-whitening, terrifying walk on a thin line dividing my life from my death. 

   Now, once again, I am in danger of losing my health care coverage.  Further, the State has closed its public oncology center, because the Governor vetoed the tax increase that would have kept it open.  So, if I lose my insurance, my cancer's remission will soon end, and the cancer will begin eating me alive; I will have a year, more or less, before cancer takes its last fatal bite of me.

   I don't know what Obama's health care reform would have done for me, or not have done.  I'm not sure of what the costs would have been, or the benefits.  I only know that, without some kind of reform, people like me, and other people with other serious medical conditions, will continue to suffer and die, when medically they could be saved, or at least have their lives prolonged and made happier and more productive.

   Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Life comes first.

   Again, I have not argued for anything in particular; only that SOMETHING should be done, because what we have now is costing, for  many people, their total wealth--or all their heatlh--and, sometimes, even their lives. 

   I want to live.  I don't want to die any sooner than I absolutely have to.  I don't want to suffer any more than I medically have to.  I'm a human being; and that means I'm something magical and wonderful, just like you and those you love.  There are many like me, floating helplessly in a sea of uncertainty, getting ever nearer to frightening whirlpools of disaster and death.

   I don't know what should be done.  But something should be done.  The current health-care system is too much about making money, and not enough about providing health care and saving lives.  Some kind of health-care reform is needed to change that situation, I think.  What do you think?

   I'm saying all this, because I'm in big trouble.  No amount of saving money, or investing, or anything I could have done financially, could have kept me from living the nightmare I'm in now, and facing the disaster and death I now face. 

   I hope I haven't lost any friends.  I need all the old friends I have, and all the new friends I can get.

--M.L.P.
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet