Sure as the world I did, honey. I cried last Sunday night when the health care bill passed in the House of Representatives.  I only wish my tears could have obscured the tortured faces that have haunted me for 15 years. These tortured faces from long ago belong to some wretched souls who found out the hard way that the private health insurance they believed in was nothing more than a fairy tale. I cried for those poor souls I once knew who will never be made whole, and for those infinitely more fortunate like you and me who will never share their fate thanks to the legislation that was passed last Sunday.

I’ll tell you about fairy tales and nightmares if you’d care to listen. You see, honey, once upon a time I didn’t know what it meant to be really sick or injured. And, like most healthy working folks, I always believed in my private health insurance. I never worried what would become of my family if, God forbid, one of us was stricken by illness or accident. I believed my health insurance would protect us from financial disaster and dependence, so I slept like a baby. Then, 15 years ago I took a job at a traumatic brain injury rehabilitation center, and I stopped believing in fairy tales. Since then, I’ve tried to keep the nightmares and the tortured faces at bay by falling asleep to the television.

Traumatic brain injury is a horrible thing. Honestly, I’d hate to think there is anything worse. I’ll just say that the instant you or someone you love receives a traumatic brain injury (TBI), the fabric of your life is ripped to shreds beyond any hope of restoration, and the remainder of your days are spent fashioning a new life and fighting to make peace with it.

Until last Sunday, putting your broken life back together after TBI was made even more painful when you were abandoned in your greatest moment of need by your private health insurance company. You’d learn real quick that your health insurance policy was cleverly parsed to restrict payouts to tragically sick or injured people.  Lifetime caps, annual caps, inpatient rehabilitation caps, outpatient rehabilitation caps, etc. Oh, these health insurance tricksters had rigged the system but good. Sometimes, just for laughs they’d drag their feet paying your claims, or arbitrarily deny your claims a few times just to see if you’d fight back. They were sure to give you the runaround for hours on end when you called their help line. They’d make you send in appeal letters from obscure specialists living great distances from you. Inconveniencing grievously sick folks is pretty lucrative, it turns out. When all else failed, your insurance company would figure out some back door excuse to terminate your policy and leave you with no access to the medical services you desperately needed.

Honey, I saw all sorts of health insurance treachery unleashed time and time again on innocent, hard-working salt-of-the-earth folks already in the midst of horrific tragedy. It was like seeing people being burned alive while you stare helplessly into their tormented eyes. I haven’t forgotten those tormented eyes, so it won’t surprise you that I haven’t had one shred of sympathy for the blood-sucking private health insurers throughout this hideous health care debate. I don’t believe in defrauding vulnerable people and destroying their lives for profit, and I’ve been disgusted by these private health insurers and their ridiculous institutionalized shenanigans for 15 years. With the passage of the health care bill last Sunday, all this B.S. is coming to a halt, and it’s about damn time.

There’s no happily ever for those folks I met all those years ago, and I just don't think I will ever stop grieving for them.  Mercifully, nobody else in America will ever experience the nightmare I've seen come to life so many times.  I pray that help will come swiftly for those sick and injured who are right now being kicked while they are down by their insurance company.  I'm grateful that those of you who've never known horrific sickness or injury will get help if you ever need it.  Honey, I cried tears of relief for you on Sunday, and I'm thankful you'll never understand how truly blessed you are.

If you want to read about the protections you now have thanks to the new health care law, click here.