Oxygen

Sitting in a Subway deep in the bowels of the Library of Congress and feeling sorry for myself. This was the best food I could locate onsite and the photocopier's out of paper. What's really depressing me, though, is the seven hundred bucks plus I had to shell out this morning for a replacement Byetta pen (one of my diabetes medications). I tried hard to keep the second pen I'd brought safely cold, using a fridge bag and ziploc bags of ice in between hotel rooms (the condensation soaked everything in the carry-on!), but was finally defeated by a malfunctioning fridge in Cornwall. There was no choice but to replace it. We have travel insurance which I pray to heaven will cover it. The cost was bad enough, but more than that, I think what struck me like a truck was the danger that price tag represents, the uncaring coldness, the contempt. This is what Americans, uniquely in the developed world, face as a matter of routine: the knowledge that they are not considered worth keeping alive. My mother-in-law barely batted an eyelash; an epipen for your child will cost you more.

ETA: The heartbreaking A GoFundMe Campaign Is Not Health Insurance (thanks, hnpcc) describes the needless death of an American diabetic who didn't have the money for that month's insulin. It echoes something I was saying to Jon in response to the sticker shock - that this isn't a nation any more. There but for furious protest goes Australia.