Giving Thanks

November 22, 2012

This year I am thankful to my friends in the fields of medicine and science. Today we live in a world where we can literally bring people back from being dead, cure cancer, and build replacement limbs. In our world a robotic exoskeleton can let a paralyzed person walk again. Immunizations mean that we need not experience the pain of polio or scariness of smallpox. Miracle drugs treat or cure diseases and conditions that would otherwise make life unbearable for many. What the doctors and scientists accomplish never ceases to amaze me, and I can only imagine what they will do next year.

That is why I am also thankful for the re-election of President Obama and the passage of healthcare reform. Our leaders are taking important steps to democratizing access to these treatments and as someone under 26 I have benefitted from the extension of parental health insurance that our leaders signed into law. The cost of healthcare locks people into jobs and makes it harder for entrepreneurs to start companies. There are few investments that I think will yield as many dividends as investing in the health of the American people.

Finally I am thankful to the taxpayers of Connecticut and the United States. They have generously chosen to invest in my future and education by subsidizing my loans and part of my law school tuition. The taxpayers of Connecticut even gave me a job for the rest of the year. It is my hope that I do not turn out to be a junk asset and will yield high returns for everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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This work by Matt Zagaja is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.