Like many other Democrats, Spike Dolomite Ward felt let down by the reality of the Obama presidency. After volunteering for his campaign, Ward perceived Obama had ignored the people--the middle class--that got him elected. The health care reform that Obama promised was too milquetoast, smart reform was too often given over for meh bipartisanship. By her own admission, Ward was so disgusted by what she saw as a selling out of Democratic ideals that she changed her voter registration to "Independent" and vandalized her own bumper sticker to change it from "Got Hope?" to "Got Nope?" Clearly, this was not a person who would participate in the re-election of Barack Obama.

And then Ward received a diagnosis that no woman wants to hear: she had breast cancer. Ward was doubly worried because two years earlier, she and her husband--for economic reasons--let their health insurance lapse. Who would be willing to insure a woman with a cancer diagnosis and expensive treatments in front of her?

To paraphrase an omnipresent ad, there's an app for that:

If you are fortunate enough to still be employed and have insurance through your employers, you may feel insulated from the sufferings of people like me right now. But things can change abruptly. If you still have a good job with insurance, that doesn't mean that you're better than me, more deserving than me or smarter than me. It just means that you are luckier. And access to healthcare shouldn't depend on luck.

Fortunately for me, I've been saved by the federal government's Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, something I had never heard of before needing it. It's part of President Obama's healthcare plan, one of the things that has already kicked in, and it guarantees access to insurance for U.S. citizens with preexisting conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months. The application was short, the premiums are affordable, and I have found the people who work in the administration office to be quite compassionate (nothing like the people I have dealt with over the years at other insurance companies.) It's not perfect, of course, and it still leaves many people in need out in the cold. But it's a start, and for me it's been a lifesaver — perhaps literally.

Trite though it may sound, Ward discovered the truism of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. And she was mature enough to cop to it:

So this is my public apology. I'm sorry I didn't do enough of my own research to find out what promises the president has made good on. I'm sorry I didn't realize that he really has stood up for me and my family, and for so many others like us. I'm getting a new bumper sticker to cover the one that says "Got nope." It will say "ObamaCares."