Produce or You're a Dead Dog

Under the porch again where the earth is cool, and that feels good. Tomorrow I'll be looking for somewhere warm to feel just as good.

Underneath all this coping I think there's just an old dog who's tired of watching the world go by at a faster clip than I can keep up with. Sometimes I feel like I'm in the slower train on a parallel track, and the express train with all my old friends is whizzing by. At first, just slowly going faster than my train, then faster and faster until I can't see the faces or the tails in the train cars on the other tracks.

It's probably not healthy to think I'm riding in the slower train, but then again, it's probably not healthy to delude myself into believing I'm not riding in the slower train.

So I'm under the porch where I don't have to look at anybody or anything going by at all.

I can understand emotionally and intellectually that a special disease like this forces me to look at the world with a greater degree of sensitivity and compassion than if I were a pure bred whippet with a mink pillow and a pedicure. I bathe in the insight and compassion (real compassion, not the kind that helped get GW appointed president) that allows me to understand other dogs better and make the world a more comfortable place emotionally for them.

The problem is that the other train I see whizzing by also has our political leaders in it and they're not interested in understanding our lives, much less making them better. They're helping the people who need help least.

I believed the Republicans in 1993 when they told me that if I supported the Clinton health care plan I would be forced into an HMO where I couldn't choose my doctor. So I got behind the Republican plan, which turned out to be a Republican lie. I'm a dog who voted for Ronald Reagan, and I'm tired of wondering how we got ourselves into the HMO box where we're taking medical advice from businesspeople. The Republicans said that wouldn't happen.

Sitting here under the porch, I can't figure out where the Republicans took a wrong turn. Republicans historically have not been the mean spirited liars that many of them are today. For all his faults, Nixon was instrumental in getting Medicare and Medicaid passed. Taking care of people who had special health needs has always been a priority in our country. Sitting here under the porch, I don't understand where that sense of responsibility has gone. I'm tired of wondering how we got ourselves into the HMO box where we're taking medical advice from businesspeople that we can't sue when they make a mistake with our lives.

So I'm going to sit here under the porch where it's cool and comfortable to see what happens in Congress these next few weeks, and then what happens at the White House. Will a patient's bill of rights with teeth get passed, and if so, will Bush sign it? For all of us with arthritis, this is a turning point in our support for Republicans. If they can't produce, as far as I'm concerned, they're dead dogs.