Woman Upset With Obama Apologizes After Breast Cancer Diagnosis

Today in a L.A. Times op-ed, a woman who was so upset with President Obama for having “let down the struggling middle class” that she switched her registration from Democrat to Independent and altered her Obama bumpers sticker to read “Got Nope” is apologizing to the President. She says that while she was angered by Obama’s plan, she’s suddenly come to appreciate it, now that she’s benefitting from it.

Two years ago, Spike Dolomite Ward and her husband had to choose between paying their mortgage or keeping their health insurance. They kept the house, and now at 49 Ward has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She didn’t know how she’d afford months of expensive treatment, until he discovered the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, which is part of Obama’s healthcare plan. Now she’s publicly “outed” herself in the hopes that she can teach Obamacare opponents that the uninsured aren’t just lazy freeloaders. She writes:

What I want people to understand is that, if this could happen to us, it could happen to anybody. If you are fortunate enough to still be employed and have insurance through your employers, you may feel insulated from the sufferings of people like me right now. But things can change abruptly. If you still have a good job with insurance, that doesn’t mean that you’re better than me, more deserving than me or smarter than me. It just means that you are luckier. And access to healthcare shouldn’t depend on luck.

Ward’s right, and she deserves credit for admitting she was wrong. (Edit: To clarify, Ward felt Obamacare didn’t do enough, but she’s speaking to people who “are still lucky enough to have health insurance and view people like my family as irresponsible.”) It’s just a shame that most people who are rabidly against enabling all Americans to have healthcare coverage won’t have a change of heart unless they’re put in a similarly horrible situation.