This is...

I am sad.

Disgusted.

Scared, for myself and for everyone else in the US who doesn't have health insurance.

I've been following my friend Branwen's fight with cancer -- much expanded, now, with the discovery of both endometrial and ovarian cancers -- and mixed in with my pride in her strength and my concern for her well-being and considering shaving my head in solidarity (which I'm probably gonna wuss out on, but I'm still trying to talk myself into it) is this occasional, quiet, totally selfish thought:

If this happened to me, I would die.

Not because of any great difference in outlook, or strength, or my body versus hers, or anything like that.

Simply because I cannot afford health insurance.

And then today I was catching up on my blogs, and I saw this post by Wormwood's Doxy in which she tells the tale of a friend of hers, who got cancer, and died, because she didn't have health insurance.

Between the two, I have gone from being angry and frustrated at the United States' health system (but only when I'm reminded of it), to FURIOUS.

HOW can anyone consider this right?

I can only hope that the vast majority of people who support the current system are doing so simply because they haven't thought it through.

I'd rail further, but Doxy (as she so often does) did an awesome job of ranting for me, and there's really not a lot I can add.