Another day in paradise

I was reminded of this Phil Collins song by a young man today. And also today, I listened to a friend who is worried about her daughter. Her daughter is in her late teens, early twenties. She has type 1 diabetes, which of course means that nothing she did caused the disease; nothing she did could have prevented it. Partly because of the disease, she can't get health insurance easily. She doesn't have the kind of job that offers group coverage, and of course private insurance companies can pick and choose who they cover, and how much they charge. So she makes do as best she can. In a previous post I talked about my grandson, who is 8 and also has type 1 diabetes, so this friend of mine has been a source of information and comfort for me as I travel this path with my grandson. Anyway, my friend's daughter has MRSA in her thumb, and may lose it, and to hear her experiences of the last few days made me want to scream. And aside from the MRSA, her mother thinks she may be in ketoacidosis (look it up), which basically means her blood sugar is extremely, dangerously out of whack. And part of the reason this may be so is because those little strips she uses to check her blood sugar, which basically are just a means to deliver the blood to the meter, cost $1.50 EACH. And a person with type 1 diabetes (and I imagine also type 2) uses as many as 200 of those little strips per month (I know Adam checks his sugar level at least 5 times per day). That translates into over $200/month just to find out what her blood sugar level is, not including the necessary insulin to maintain it at a healthy level.
And with all this, the most ironic thing for me is that her mother votes republican as far as I know. What is wrong with this picture? My friend loves her child, yet I am sure she doesn't think there should be universal health care. I love her, and my heart breaks for her and for her child, and my vote, MY VOTE, will go to those who will make this better.