How many lives is your Senator worth?

Hope is a wonderful thing. It can keep us going when times seem bleak. Hope got us a new president who promised us health care reform. It's a good thing for hope, because right now hope is about all I have left for health care reform.

I hope Senate and House Democrats can get their act together. I hope they realize there's no benefit in paying the slightest attention to the Republican "death panel" noise machine. I hope they learn (quickly, please) that there's no down-side at all to simply ignoring them. I hope, for one single shining moment of history, that they'll listen to the angels of their better natures and act on the deep and certain knowledge that providing my family and yours with quality, affordable health care is in fact more important than letting health insurance lobbyists rig the game to the profit of their clients.

I hope, just this once, that our elected Senators and Representatives will do the right thing. The just thing. In fact, the only moral thing to do here: Tell the insurance industry to stuff it and give us a damn public option.

I hope.

And I know I'm not the only one.

But hope is also a dangerous thing, because hope for a better option tomorrow can cause people to delay seeking the care they need today.

President Obama talks a lot about preventing illness both to improve quality of life and to contain costs. He's right: a disease avoided is obviously better and cheaper for everyone all around. Avoiding disease is something we can do if we remove that Damoclean sword of pre-existing conditions, dropped coverage, and skyrocketing premiums from over everybody's heads.

But how many illnesses are going un-detected, right now, because people are stuck trying to make the impossible choice between seeking medical care now because they suspect something is wrong with them, or not, because they know that to do so would probably cause financial ruin for them and their families?

How many illnesses--how many early-stage cancers, how many borderline cases of diabetes, how many nascent cases of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or AIDS--are going undiagnosed and untreated right now, in the days and weeks when diagnosis and treatment would make the greatest difference in long-term outcomes, because those people are holding on to hope that Congress is going to do the right thing?

How many, Congress? How many?

To every blue-dog in our bicameral national legislature, I ask, "How many?"

When you go home to your states and districts to run for re-election next time, trumpeting the petty claims you're building for yourself based on your objection to non-existent "death panels" or whatever made you think it was a good idea to be an obstacle betwee the American public and what we need, you'd better know that your claims come at the cost of real human life and suffering.

So you'd better have an answer to "how many," because if you think for one second that marginally improving your chances for re-election are worth even one person's suffering, I guarantee you that you're going to find yourself in a fight with your constituents (not to mention your challengers) that you simply cannot win.

Honestly, I don't care whether you're motivated by a desire for honest public service or by a simple, venal desire for power. As long as you do the right thing for the people, I really don't care. In this case, doing the right thing for the people is also the right thing for your own career ambitions. I only hope you're smart enough to understand that.