I have been an entrepreneur for 40 years. I have started several small companies providing hundreds of jobs over the years, many of which were in industries which did not typically offer employees health insurance. Often this made it impossible to offer employer paid insurance and still remain competitive. I have watched people I care about risking their financial security and health because care was unavailable and, or unaffordable.

As buyers of individual health coverage, my wife and I have had to navigate the insurance company rules regarding preexisting conditions. At time we had different members of the family insured by different carriers because we could not get new affordable coverage when companies raised rates on policy groups in an attempt to drive out the sick and to cherry pick only healthy people always simply for profits. Those healthy peoplewill eventually become the ones who need care and will be "uninsurable."

What an appalling word to describe a whole group of our fellow human beings who have become insurance outcastes facing not only their illness but financial ruin simply becuse they were not included in the system.

I am now sixty, 5 years away from Mdicare and uninsurable. My wife is fifty eight and after paying premiums for 40 years, we can no longer afford coverage.

The concept of insurance; pooling revenue to weather individual hardship, is one of the miraculous components of our communal lives. It does not work unless all of us participate, pay our way, help those who can't and recognize that taking care of each other is a moral obligation.

I find it incredible that those who are leading the charge against national health insurance are often closely aligned with the religious community. How can they wail about the elimination of a clump of fetal cells but stand by idly while there fellow humans suffer.