Before the Affordable Care Act I could literally not get insurance. I have a chronic disease, ulcerative colitis, which causes me a lot of pain, about $300 in prescription drug bills per month, and will probably give me cancer.

The treatment for the cancer that I hope won’t kill me is a surgery that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and it will be followed by a lifetime of medical bills to help me live without a colon.

Do you want to know why I didn’t have health insurance? Because I was diagnosed in college…and when I graduated I had to get off the University’s plan and when I applied for new coverage I was denied. I was denied by every insurance company that operates in the state of Montana. Apparently this was my fault?

So now we have the Affordable Care Act. I pay full price for health insurance, and if I get in a car accident (which might happen) or get cancer (which probably will) I can avoid bankruptcy. I can continue running my business that employs 30 people and not dissolve all of the assets of the thing I have built in order to pay for the luxury of not dying.

And what is the price to you? To the average citizen? Oh, y’know, nothing. No increase in your taxes, and you’re more likely to see your insurance bill go down than you were before the ACA was passed. Fucking Horrible. I’m so sorry that the sustainability of our nation’s economy and the freedom of average citizens to not live in constant fear take precedence over your bullshit ideology.