I wrote this letter at about 4 am during another night of insomnia… Hopefully, it makes sense…

Dear Senator,

You don’t know what it’s like to wake up at 4 am from a racing heart wondering if you have a serious health condition, scared if you do that you won’t be able to afford the care that you’ll need.

You don’t know what it’s like to call doctor after doctor only to hear “sorry, we don’t take your health insurance.”

You don’t know what it’s like when it’s starting to dawn on you that the health insurance you have has a mark and that doctors avoid it because it was bought through an exchange. Later you learn it’s actually the insurance companies who are gaming the system.

You don’t know what it’s like when you wonder if the supplements you are taking are doing more harm than good, supplements you are taking because your doctor doesn’t give you the treatment you need or you cannot afford that treatment.

You don’t know what it’s like when you know that a treatment would help your mental health and it would break your financial health.

You don’t know these things because you have what every citizen of the United States should have: You have good health insurance. You have health care that is top of the line.

I am sick and tired and don’t have access to any of this, like millions of others in the US. Isn’t it time to really create a health care system in the US replacing the sickness profiteering system we have right now? I urge you to restart the fight for a single payer system to align us with all the other modern nations in the world.