Well, once again, we the people have lost.

[Ms. Toad]

233. Our family has already benefitted.

My daughter has a condition which prohibits her from working or attending school full time. Prior to passage of the ACA, she was struggling to maintain full time status (and failing miserably) because at 18+ she was not eligible for coverage on my policy unless she was in school full time. It will take her 6 years to finish college, but she now has a realistic chance of making it.

In 2014 she will be eligible to purchase coverage on her own, despite the fact that she has two pre-existing conditions which cost roughly $60,000 a year to treat. Prior to ACA, no one would offer her private coverage, except during the open enrollment period, at a cost of around $18,000 a year - and the likelihood that she will be able to sustain a job which pays basic living expenses with $18,000 to spare is slim to none (and she obviously will not have $60,000 to spare each and every year).

Under the ACA, her costs will likely be $0, because for the foreseeable future she will be unable to work full time. As she is able to work more, she will pick up more and more of the premium - but she will never be penalized her for her tremendously awful luck of the draw in the genetic pool.

Is ACA exactly what I want? Absolutely not. I want single payer. Is it health care reform? Again, absolutely not. But it does make insurance available at a non-discriminatory rate for those who - like my daughter - through no fault of their own are currently unable to obtain insurance on the open market at all (or, as in our state, during very limited periods at an exorbitant rate).

It is far from perfect, but it is the most significant progress toward increasing access to health care in my lifetime. Now if we can just co-opt the energy of those conservatives who are threatening to flee to a single payer country to work toward single payer here, we might really get somewhere.