Written by Leslie Boyd   

I spent a quarter century covering social justice issues -- health and human services, departments of social services, child abuse, domestic violence, poverty -- trying to bring injustice and corruption to light. I succeeded a few times in changing government policies, but I could do nothing when my own son got sick.

Mike was 30, a recovering addict, a husband, honor student and volunteer in his community. He couldn't get health insurance because he was born with a defect that left him vulnerable to colon cancer. Because he didn't have insurance he couldn't get the colonoscopies he needed every year.

In 2005, he got sick. He couldn't keep food down and he was losing weight. When he finally dropped to 110 pounds (he was 6 feet tall), the doctor agreed to do a colonoscopy, but he never told Mike his colon was blocked. Three weeks later, Mike was admitted to the hospital so near death that it took five days to stabilize him for surgery. By then his cancer was Stage 3.

The hospital in Savannah, Ga., neglected him until it was too late to save his life, and no one would even apologize for the way he was treated.

We did manage to get care for him at Duke University Medical Center, but he had to leave his wife to get Medicaid. Meanwhile, he had been turned down twice for Disability, even though he had metastatic cancer.

In other words, everyone got paid -- except Mike.

A few weeks before Mike died, we got a letter saying he had been approved; his first check came nine days after he died.

Mike died on April 1, 2008. He was 33.

The Affordable Care Act isn't perfect, but if it had been the law six or seven years ago, my son likely would be alive today.

Universal access to appropriate health care is not socialism, and even if it were, I would support it. We are 19th in health care outcomes of the 19 industrialized nations. Up to 100,000 people die prematurely each year in the United States because of lack of access to appropriate health care. If anything else were causing that number of people to die, there would most certainly be outrage.

Already, people are getting the benefits of the ACA, people like my friend Carolyn Comeau, who is able to get insurance through the state's high-risk pool so she can get care if her cancer comes back. More than 2.5 million young adults are able to remain on their parents' policies until they turn 26.

Finally, there are some limits to what big insurance companies can do to people.

Perhaps one day, people will be able to change jobs without worrying about losing insurance coverage. Maybe we can get an option to buy into Medicare so insurance companies will have competition and consumers will have real choice.

The Affordable Care Act is just the beginning; we still have a ways to go. I have signed on for the duration of the fight, in memory of my precious child, and in defense of yours.

Leslie Boyd is founder and director of Life o' Mike, a health care advocacy, education and support nonprofit in Asheville, NC. For more information, visit lifeomike.org or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .