Soon You Will Need A Permit To Have Sex

While waiting for a table at Olive Garden in a touristy town a couple of weeks ago, I had an interesting encounter.   The weather was nice enough to wait outdoors and a woman who was smoking walked up to me and asked if it was still legal to smoke outside.  

Why she asked me, I have no clue.  

I responded kindly and with a laugh said, "Yes, for now I think it is still legal."   

That was all she needed to hear from me to make more conversation. 

"You know," she said, "We are about to live in a communist country.  Pretty soon we will have to get a permit to make love."  

I laughed and agreed that our country was definitely headed toward socialism and that if a permit ever became necessary for sex, I might be the first in line.  We joked for a few minutes about this possibility and then she shared with me that she was in town to heal from the death of her husband to whom she had only been married for a week.   They had been together much longer but had only recently made the marriage legal.   He started having pain, he was rushed to the hospital only to find a large, cancerous tumor had ruptured.  He bled to death; her heart broke.   They did not have good health insurance, so regular health screening was a luxury.   She did not blame the health-care system or the government for her husband's death.  Some would argue that if he had better health-care the tumor might have been found earlier and he might have lived.  Not her.  That was the dish life had handed her.  No one was faulted and the government was not to blame for her sorrow.   I could have sat and cried with her, but her table was ready and she left quickly.

This happened on the six month anniversary of my dad's death from lung cancer.  He had great insurance for which he paid an outrageous monthly premium and lived two years through torturous cancer treatments.   He was a veteran...but I never heard him once say the government owed him anything. 

I tell this story today in light of the health care bill passage last evening.   Health care now rests in the hands of our government....our founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves. 

About that permit to have sex....she may not have been very far from wrong.  

What are your thoughts regarding the health care bill passage? 

Thanks for reading, Rosie.