My name is Gillian Mangan and I am the face of pre-existing conditions. I am the invisible vote regarding your proposed healthcare plan, a plan that bars citizens from obtaining insurance at an affordable rate. The invisible vote will not be counted in Senate; rather, I am a representative of a society that has been dismissed for far too long. Healthcare is not a polarizing figure. Healthcare is not governed by power, nor is it a pawn to politics. The impetus of healthcare is compassion, a strong gust that pushes revelations in research and cures to new heights. The ridicule of chronic conditions is a distant cousin to greed. A vote for empathy is a vote for the child enduring chemotherapy, the teenager told that he has Type 1 diabetes, the family who spends sleepless nights figuring out how to pay for expensive treatment and medicine.
A hospital has a voice of its own – it holds the stories of miracles, mourning, and morale. During my week-long stay at a hospital, alongside the brief visits that bookend the trip, doctors performed an extended EEG. Coined as the “epilepsy torture unit,” I could easily experience a terrifying vulnerability due to the uncontrollable seizure. The seizure moved like a wave, rushing over my body and hitting the shore of my parents as they relentlessly stayed at the bedside. Every breathing body in the room paused for five minutes. The wires were untangled, the intricacy of my neural pathways appeared like a simple algebraic function: if the nurses treated my post-ictal mind with sincerity, the answers would surface with greater clarity. Though one of the answers was to increase the medicinal dosage, I was subject to a greater dosage of empathy from people who dismiss the notion of a limited diagnosis.
A pre-existing condition is not confined to a human body. Humans are lucky to witness unique conditions in their daily routines, let alone practice them. The nature of humanity begs for habits of endurance and selflessness, habits that were engrained in our minds long before we conceptualized voting. As a voice, indeed a vote, of pre-existing conditions, I ask you to merge diplomacy with diagnoses, to reach a consensus that is not chronically exclusive. There is a societal condition that surrounds our nation, a condition of unlimited geniality. We exist when we grow, when we erase the narrative of “pre” and “post.”
Your proposed plan emphasizes the narrative of exclusivity – insurance would surface as a greater issue to humans who need medical assistance, whether it be medicinal or therapeutic. Please revise the plan to reinstate empathy in our nation, to ensure people that treatment is plausible. The preventative measures taken in Senate would be priceless compared to the thousands of dollars spent on preventative medicines.
The society of the invisible vote begs to be noticed, to recognize reality through hardships and marvels. The vote is one for the present moment. I represent awareness, a mindful push towards a system that cradles compassion as its driving force.