Last week, I got a call from my brother. He told me that our mother had breast cancer. On Thursday, two days ago, our mother was operated on. They removed the breast cancer and two thirds of the lymph nodes in her right arm. That meant the cancer may have spread. That basically means chemotherapy for my mom, and that really sucks.

However, the surgery and the chemo will give my mom a fighting chance. Furthermore, it is a chance she would never have if there weren't programs like Medicaid and Medicare. You see, without those programs, our family could never pay for all the care she is going to need. With those programs, my mom will probably live years, and, I hope, maybe many years longer. Odds are without these programs, my mother would be gone in a few years.

So what do I think of Paul Ryan and his plan to gut Medicare? I think, in fact I know, that if his plan were enacted, many people like my mother would die. Now maybe some people, mostly Republicans I suspect, think that my mother should have been busy making tons of money so that she could have paid for her own health care. Perhaps she should have, but instead my mother trained to be a teacher. She got her Bachelor's and her Master's degree and she taught thousands of students.

She taught them how to think and how to learn. More importantly, she taught them that learning things can be joyful. Perhaps she should have instead done something that earns people lots of money, but where would our children be if everyone like my mom just chased the dollar and no one took the poorly paying teacher's jobs?

Perhaps my father should have gone after the bucks so that he could cover my mom's expenses. The problem is, my dad is a teacher too. In fact, they met in St. John's Teacher's College in New York. He also had a love of teaching and helping people over going after the dollar. Should people like him have gone after the money so that he could pay for my mom's health care? If so, who would teach your kids--who would have taught you?

The simple fact is, we live in a world where people who make a difference in thousands of lives are not paid enough to be able to have a big bankroll when big health problems come. The Paul Ryan's of the world think that after a lifetime of service to the public that these people should be on his voucher program that will not begin to cover what they need. He thinks it is OK that people like my mom don't get the help that they need. He thinks when people criticize his program that people are just using scare tactics.

Well Paul Ryan, your whole plan is a scare tactic to me. It scares the hell out of me that some day people like you might destroy Medicare so that it is not there when I need it. It scares me that your plan would mean that people like my mom who have not yet gotten to Medicare age would have their coverage so drastically cut--that regular folk who spend their lives doing necessary work will not have the help they need so that rich folks can buy another yacht or the foreclosed property of their unemployed neighbors. All of this scares me.

But today, even though it is sad that my mom has cancer, I can rejoice that she has a fighting chance. I can rejoice that Medicare, fought for so hard by Democrats over and over is there to protect her, and all of the other people that took jobs to help the nation instead of taking jobs just for a big paycheck.

I can rejoice that Medicare is still here and so is my mom. Mom, I hope you live many more days and then go to heaven as you believe. I love you Mom.

As for Paul Ryan, well you can rot in hell. In fact, assuming there is a God, I think you probably will.