So, after a year of working here, my employer finally agrees to provide health insurance (after I threatened to quit if they didn't).

Last week, I called to make an appointment with a doctor. I got a list of doctors from my insurance company. There were a total of 10 in my local area After checking variious review sites, I found one who looked like they'd be a good fit, and gave them a call.

They are not currently accepting new patients.

So, I went back to the list and found my second choice doctor.

They are also not taking new patients at this time.

Number three doesn't actually take Blue Cross/Blue shield, though they do have agreements with the company to limit prices on certain procedures they do for their customers.

Number four, the same.

Number five is apparently out of business. Google lists the same number that Blue Cross does, but it gives a disconnected message when called.

Number six is not taking new patients.

Number Seven, finally, is taking patients and does take Blue Cross.

So I make an appointment.

The earliest they can see me is three weeks, on the day before Thanksgiving.

The receptionist reminds me twice that I need to bring my insurance card with me or they'll be unable to see me.

And that they require a $100.00 deposit for all new patients. Cash up front, no checks.

Good thing we don't have Universal health care in this country, otherwise there might have been bureaucracy involved!

The large insurance companies currently spending millions a day on bribes lobbying and PR tell us that in some countries people have to wait a week to see a doctor, and often won't get their first choice.

I'll respond with words their followers may be familiar with: "Bring it on!"

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life - what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home - that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That's what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.

I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.