Until you've looked a parent in the eye and told them their perfect child has a preexisting condition no insurance company will cover, you can't tell me the Affordable Care Act isn't worth fighting for.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of fighting for healthcare reform, particularly the Affordable Care Act, as it affects families with children who have serious health issues.
Ralph Northam's quote highlights the personal and emotional challenges faced by parents of children with preexisting conditions in accessing healthcare. It underscores the need for policies like the Affordable Care Act that protect vulnerable individuals and families from the financial burdens associated with medical care, advocating for empathy and action in healthcare reform.
In practice
During a panel discussion on healthcare policy, you might quote this to emphasize the stakes involved.
I grew up on the Eastern Shore during desegregation. A lot of white parents chose to send their kids to private schools rather than integrate - but not mine. My brother and I both attended and graduated from public schools. It's one of the best things that happened to me.
Having an eating disorder doesn't show ‘strength.’ Strength is when are able to overcome your demons after being sick and tired for so long. Starving is not a ‘diet’ and throwing up isn't something that only extremely thin men or women do. Eating disorders do not discriminate..Neither does any other mental illness. These are deadly diseases that are taking lives daily. So please, let's be cautious of the words we use when discussing ED's and other mental illnesses.
...This large and expensive stock of drugs will be unnecessary. By...doses of...medicines...multiplying...combining them properly, 20 to 30 articles, aided by the common resources of the lancet, a garden, a kitchen, fresh air, cool water, exercise, will be sufficient to cure all the diseases that are at present under the power of medicine.
I trained in internal medicine, and I expected most of my time would be spent on diabetes or heart disease or cancer. What I didn't expect was that so many people I saw would be struggling with loneliness.
The poorest parts of the world are by and large the places in which one can best view the worst of medicine and not because doctors in these countries have different ideas about what constitutes modern medicine. It's the system and its limitations that are to blame.
When we understand the connection between how we live and how long we live, it's easier to make different choices. Instead of viewing the time we spend with friends and family as luxuries, we can see that these relationships are among the most powerful determinants of our well-being and survival.
As a chef and father, it kills me that children are fed processed foods, fast food clones, foods loaded with preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup.
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