Yesterday, I was on my way to Target with Daniel to pick up some prescriptions and a press conference with Speaker Paul Ryan came on NPR. He talked about how the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”) has ruined the country and how he and Congress are sending the president a message about what the people of America think of the plan. I was so thankful that the only thing on my stomach was my latté because I was having to fight not to throw up from sheer anger and nerves. In fact, I am *STILL* completely furious 24 hours later and was going to write this post last night but couldn’t find the words in the midst of my abject fury.

So… here is my letter to Paul Ryan.

Speaker Ryan,

You and your party finally succeeded after 60 votes to pass a measure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which was 60 votes too many and wasted, at $30 million per vote, $1.8 billion. Guess what? The president is going to veto it and your people do not have the 2/3 majority needed to override the veto so pretty much you just wasted another $30 million of taxpayer money. So good to know that my tax payer money is being well-spent in your effort to further the toxic partisan environment in the federal government.

However, what angers me most is not that you wasted the money but that what you are doing affects me very deeply. You see, this is who you voted to kill when you voted each time:

That’s me holding my son Daniel for the first time on April 25, 2009. He was born 10.5-11 weeks early when I developed HELLP Syndrome and had to have an emergency c-section to save my life. If I had not had a doctor that caught it and got me to a hospital with someone who could operate and who could handle the severity of my case, Daniel and I would have both been dead in a matter of hours. Because of the HELLP Syndrome, I have autoimmune issues and have a severely elevated risk of complications should I ever have any more children. The painful part: nobody knows why exactly it hits or how to prevent it and the only cure is to deliver the baby at whatever gestational age it is and hope that the kid can make it. I don’t smoke, drink, or take any illegal drugs and I ate a completely healthy diet while pregnant so it is not like I brought this on myself.

Why does this apply to the Affordable Care Act and your efforts to repeal it? Because of provisions of the Affordable Care Act, my son Daniel can never be denied insurance because of his traumatic birth and the conditions that resulted from his prematurity. Insurance companies cannot charge him higher rates. This is a good thing because we have had three more hospitalizations in the last 6 1/2 years, one of which almost resulted in us losing him when he coded right in front of me. Speaker Ryan, have you ever watched your child being attended to by medical professionals who are in a high state of panic, knowing that in a matter of seconds your child could die if what they are doing is not successful? Have you ever had to sign paperwork to put your child on ECMO, the heart-lung bypass, so that maybe with some rest, their heart and lungs might not fail? Have you ever lived at a hospital for three weeks, getting a shower once every four days, sleeping on a pull-out recliner, and having to have clothing and clean underwear brought to you because you cannot leave the hospital? I am guessing that you have not because if you had, you would not have voted the way you did.

This is Daniel now:

He did survive that hospital stay and while he does still have delays from prematurity and he is autistic, he is a happy, smart, and sweet-natured child who smiles at everyone and lights up every room into which he walks. His speech has exploded in the last year thanks to a school autism program and I have hope of him eventually being mainstreamed into a regular classroom someday. He is the embodiment of the Affordable Care Act.

As for myself, the Affordable Care Act has meant that Daniel’s traumatic birth and the complications that arose cannot be held against me when buying insurance. Insurance companies cannot charge me higher rates for being female, cannot attach prohibitively expensive pregnancy riders onto my plan, or deny me lifesaving prenatal and maternity care should I have any more children. It means that I no longer have to choose between buying food to feed myself and my son or paying for the medicine that both of us take to keep us alive. Tell me, Mr. Speaker, am I an example of how the Affordable Care Act has failed?

For every person that has complained about their insurance costs rising, there are one hundred stories of people like me who are alive because of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Even some of my diehard Republican friends, at least the ones who are not engaging in partisan bickering, agree that it is a good piece of legislation and that it is a wise use of legislative and government resources. Many of them are now able to have health insurance whereas before they were having to go without insurance and leave chronic conditions untreated as they had no access to healthcare. Are they an example of how the Affordable Care Act has failed?

In 2012, I was relieved that President Obama was re-elected, not because I hated you or Mitt Romney, but because the two of you winning the election had the potential to have a catastrophic effect on my life. For many of your supporters, the President’s victory represented an affront to their values or a mere inconvenience to them. For me, the President’s victory meant that my son and I would be allowed to live.

Speaker, you can play your partisan games and engage in offensive politicking as much as you want with others; but God help me, you will not play these games with my son.