ME TALK PRETTY
Uliana Preotu (lead singer/co-founder)
Life is a gift. The worst thing that can ever happen is when you are given a gift and then it’s taken away from you.
Some of us say God wanted so and that is a way out, but some others, like me, have some extra questions. When it’s the right time to let go of the ones we love? Is it within our power to do more and what else could we have done? Is it within our rights to change something?
We all have same rights, no matter our age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, educational level, etc. but money does have its own rules.
I came to USA with $40 in my pocket and I was really hoping while at JFK airport that I would recognize my mother after being apart for 5 years, because of a long immigration process. Her dream, and mine, was to live in a country that can offer me a better life, a future and opportunities. I’m grateful, as my life changed for better, but not without losing my best friend, my role model, my support in an unknown world- my mom. From the day I got the phone call and was told my mom has passed, my life changed once again.
I had to see her die to fully understand that money gives us an unequal chance to life and to some, a first place in line.
While health insurance companies make an obscene amount of money and have ridiculous rules on who is eligible for health care or not, people like my mom die; not from cancer, not from heart transplants, but from the simple, common and preventable pneumonia. In our times we can save people from pneumonia but we cannot save health care companies from being greedy.
People like my mom simply can’t afford health insurance. The older you get the more expensive it’s gonna be. Sure, we immigrants make very little money. So what are the odds that we get any health care? None. We go and grab over the counter medication because we can’t afford a doctors visit. We think we can make it work, until we realize we fooled ourselves.
There are so many of us out there that see health insurance as a luxury. We have these companies right in our face, selling it to us, but we can’t buy it. The thing is, people shouldn’t even buy it. People should have the possibility to get free to low cost health care like the rest of the world does. We are the country that everyone in the world is looking up to. I know my mom and I did.
We must lead by example, but, I’m afraid America got this one wrong.
It is unacceptable that, in modern times like this, we can’t figure out a way to prolong life and have everybody benefit from it.
America please wake up and ask for what’s right. When you’re done coping with the idea that “it is what it is,” please do something about it.
Popularity: unranked
