Shame

I volunteer at a local Hospitality House, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing a “home away from home” to outpatients and caregivers of patients at surrounding hospitals.  One of our guests is the wife of a quadruple bipass heart patient, a federal employee who is only one day out of surgery.  Today they were informed his medical leave was now considered “furlough” as a result of the government shut down.

She spent hours on the phone trying to ascertain when benefits would actually be cut off and how to pay his insurance premium out of her own pocket since without insurance, they would be facing a hospital bill nearing a quarter of a million dollars.  He spent time stressed over the future instead of focused on his recovery.

The local congressman must have found the shut down an opportunity to gain footing with his constituents because he sent out an email exclaiming “look what’s happened.”  She quickly fired off an email stating “we don’t have to see it, we FEEL it and you ALL should be ashamed!”

And they should!  Sadly, The real shame is that our “representatives” have no shame or they would be working harder to ensure the weak and wounded aren’t left out in the cold during a government shutdown that still somehow manages to pad their pockets. But hey, they reopened the national parks…clearly there are priorities.