Finally, after a lay off happened to me in October of 2006, my applying and interviewing has paid off, or just about. Looking for work can be harder than working. I have been offered two positions: one with a great salary, a 2 year contract, with NO benefits; the other with a lower salary, with a 1 year contract (open for renewal) with great benefits.
Which one do you think I decided to accept?
 Since last October, I have been one of those Americans with no health insurance, a very precarious and scary place to be, especially as I am getting older. Maybe that would be okay if I was 21 and in my prime. I have no major health problems, am not old enough for medicare, don’t have a spouse whose benefits I can share, and suppose someone decides to run me over as I cross the street? Or shoot me? A real possibility in this city where, from my observation. drivers do not seem to know the rules of the road. (they speed through yield signs, brake going up hill, lose track of the width of lanes, have no clue what to do if two or more cars come to an intersection at the same time) So I liquidate all my assets to pay medical and dental bills, and ask my sons to buy me a shopping cart for Mother’s Day!
 This is an issue to think seriously about in our next presidential election. I have worked as a health professional for 39 years, paid my taxes, paid into social security. It seems like I have a right to a relatively comfortable life, with health insurance. Or don’t we have rights anymore? I might do better moving to a foreign country where there is national health insurance. We are LONG OVERDUE for this here.
 When I was an undergrad student in the 60’s, I had a professor who said that we would have  a national health insurance program by the time we graduated in 1968. What a dreamer…I hope, if she is still teaching, that she has become jaded and doesn’t say this anymore…