Yes, we need change....and fast.

[Skidmore]

I want to talk to you people who seem to think that now is the time to pull a power play with your vote. I'm very serious about this. We need change. Desparately.

I want to tell you about my first cousin. A good man with a kind heart and well respected in his town. Sunday evening while I was on the phone with his father, my paternal uncle, having our weekly chat, his son was a few blocks away from his home committing suicide. Now why would a kind, respected, loving man do something like this? Well, I'll tell you. A couple of years ago, my cousin was injured on his job. He had surgery but it did not correct all of his problems and he was in pain a great deal of the time. To add insult to injury, his employer started finding ways to push him out of his job and he attributed this to the cost of his injury and its impact on the health insurance policy for the business. He fought to keep his job because he needed his health insurance. Apparently, the pressures at his job and his health problems finally were more than he could bear. I know he must have been in great despair. He did not share the full extent of his problems with his parents, who both have serious health issues of their own. My cousin leaves behind a wife and two children.

Go ahead and keep tearing down our candidate. Give us John McCain to make your point. Right now, I'm not feeling real charitable about your single issue or whatever. I'd just like to have known I could see my cousin again at the next family reunion and to catch up on the year's events. I'd just like to know that his kids could have a father to return home to visit when they are older. I'd just like for his wife to be able to enter her home right now.

[comtec]

1. **hugz and comfort**

that is horrible. I'm so sorry for your loss, and his :(.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. I am so so sorry

"He fought to keep his job because he needed his health insurance."

That is the sentence that just summarizes it all - fighting to keep a job that injured you and then conspired against you in order to stay alive. God, that is so horrible!!

Every single American family is one devastating illness or injury away from an abyss of despair and financial ruin. I hope that we all pull together and push loudly and strongly for that basic right to healthcare that is NOT tied to employment that we all are entitled (yes, that's right - ENTITLED) to.

Of course we only will have that happen with a Democrat in the White House and in both houses of Congress. And if the people UNITE and DEMAND universal healthcare as a basic human and American right.

[NanceGreggs]

3. So sorry to hear this, Skidmore ...

Condolences to you and your family.

[GihrenZabi]

4. *raises eyebrow*

No offense, but Obama isn't going to solve the health care crisis. I don't think a single elected official other than one of our Progressive representatives might be willing to ever point out the root of the problem in a public forum:

Capitalism. Greed is ruining our health care system, and the only way to reform it is to remove as much of the profit-motive as possible. No politician, especially Obama, is going to touch this with someone else's 80-foot pole. This is a problem which will only get solved when the current system is on the verge of collapse and we have no choice but to change it.

European health care is far from perfect - I know many Europeans disgusted with the wait for care or the perceived low-quality of said public care to be willing to just shell out their own money to pay for quicker, better care; but I also know many Europeans utterly bewildered by the very concept of having to worry about how much you pay your doctor versus how much insurance pays for the care you REQUIRE.

I recently had an experience with just how fucked-up our system is. I required the purchase of some home medical equipment for a chronic condition which is life-threatening. My doctor writes the scrip and the home care company contacts me. They charge $1500 for the equipment I need. My insurance plan only pays out $750 as a "durable medical equipment" benefit every calendar year. So I'm looking to go $750 out of pocket in a "rent to own" payment system.

This doesn't seem right to me, so I look online for the same equipment: I can purchase high-quality models, sans some of the bells and whistles but utterly appropriate to my needs, for $350.

$350. And I own it outright.

Long story short, when the home care company follows up with me after I hadn't bothered with them for a few days and I tell them I plan to just buy the gear myself, outside insurance because their offer is preposterous, suddenly they can cut me a deal where I can get a top-of-the-line machine for only $200 out of pocket, and I own it outright.

/facepalm


Not everyone is suspicious, or clever, or whatever personality attributes we wish to assign as prerequisites to self-advocacy. HMO's ought to be patient-centric. They are not. They are profit-minded entities like any other business, and that's the problem.

Neither McCain nor Obama are going to fix this, sorry. Obama will more than likely result in more people being able to buy insurance, but that's a band-aid, not a solution. The problem is the way our whole health care system works at its core: if it wasn't about profit, your cousin's employer wouldn't have felt the need to push your cousin out of his job because his injury wouldn't have cost his employer a dime, which is how it ought to be.

[barack the house]

5. Radio caller " If FISA is your biggest issue you ain't got problems." Let's get Obama elected then..

we can fix stuff. Any other way is cataclysmic.

[LWolf]

6. We do need change.

We certainly agree on that.

What you don't seem to want to acknowledge is that not everyone sees Obama as the change that we need. People who want real, authentic, POSITIVE change have every right to hold Obama accountable for that.

Holding Obama accountable is not going to "give you McCain." It's also not responsible for the tragic suicide of your cousin.

I'm sorry about your cousin. I'll continue to support HR 676, which might have made a difference.

[SidneyCarton]

7. My deepest sympathies to you and yours.

Your story is yet another proof that things cannot go on as they are. I do not think Senator Obama can promise to fix all our ills, but electing him is a step in the right direction, if nothing else it may help stem the ruin.