brb Asia

Got some news for you -- while the debate in Congress drags on, and incredible organizations like Health Care for America Now, Sick for Profit, Rock the Vote, Physicians for a National Health Program as well as millions of committed individuals fight for sane, effective, humane, and efficient American health care, my job's taking me out of the country for the next few months, and I won't be able to post here or respond to comments.

I was never really supposed to be doing this: my regular bit basically involves reading, language, and travel. I started this blog out of a kind of sense of compulsion, and have been trying to run it in my spare time (which should be obvious to anyone who reads every day -- some pretty thin entries, back there in the archives...).

If all goes well, I won't be back before our Congress votes on, and Barack Obama signs, a strong public option. One that gives the government the power to negotiate for lower health care costs, and one in which any American can choose to participate.

Until then, this blog will slow down a great deal -- I'm going to put the comments on moderation to avoid dozens of ads for Cialis cluttering up the place, and hopefully Mattlo In His Infinite Wisdom will have plenty to say (although he's got a full time job too, so you know), but there may be a good bit more silence in the next few weeks.

As long as I'm doing a meta-what-about-the-blog post, here are blog-related facts: since I started monitoring traffic on September 12, a little under a month ago, the blog has had 712 page views and 403 unique visitors. The most linked-to post was "Specifically, Women", which got picked up by feminist blog Feministing. The most commonly viewed individual page was GradMed Insurance Review, thanks to our OCD, underutilized friends at GradMed aka American Insurance Administrators aka all sorts of things. The blog has been accessed from Britain, Singapore, Turkey, Japan, and Spain. Someone from Vilnus, Lithuania arrived here last week by doing a Google blogsearch for "bill +method" (I don't think they were looking for info on the Baucus bill, but that's what they got).

My favorite picture on the blog is this one, a real circular from the early 60s outlining the treasonous Communist sympathies of John F. Kennedy. The cutest person on the blog is this person. My favorite reader comment is this one, which outlines what an AIDS patient had to do in order to get his life-saving medication covered by Pacificare. His success -- and his willingness to fight -- gives me hope that the rest of us can win our fight against the insurance industry, too.

Also, Dying for a Public Option is the only Internet site in the entire world which contains the phrase "internet fancyparties". This phrase, wholly invented by me personally, is not a registered trademark and may be freely used for any and all purposes.

I have one more post ready for tomorrow, but after that, I'm out. I sort of had fun doing this. If we end up with affordable health insurance for all Americans, I will have really had fun doing this. Thank you all for the outgoing links to HCAN and the calls to Congress. Please keep up the good work.