BY SHARON MARTIN

I took my own advice and am writing letters. I’m sending the following to President Obama.

Dear President Obama:

I am so happy to have you and your family in the White House. I hope every day for the success of your progressive policies and for your well-being.

Because I’m one of the lucky ones, with safety, shelter, and enough to eat, my most immediate concern is my health insurance. I’m a retired public school teacher with a health history. I had polio when I was four years old, and I’ve worked my whole life to be as healthy as a polio survivor can be. Now, because I taught school for only nine years, I am underinsured. I need good insurance to stay healthy. That’s all I’m asking for.

I’m disappointed that single payer insurance is off the table. I’m a little disappointed, too, that Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana says that it isn’t even under discussion. However, I hope we can at least include a public insurance option in the health care overhaul.

I understand that corporate insurance companies are afraid. I also understand that their profits have come at the expense of healthy families and a healthy manufacturing sector in our country. If we are the industrialized nation that demands that our employers provide insurance from their profits, how can we compete? Single payer insurance, or at least, a public option, is not only good for our health but for the health of our economy.

Please consider what I’m saying. Americans need a return to logic, to science, to preventive health, and to productivity. Health care reform that includes affordable insurance for everyone will go a long way toward putting us on the road to recovery.

– Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer