Nick Coleman "That reform sure doesn't go very far"

[dflprincess]

from Sunday's Strib:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/89301787.html?elr=KArksc8P:Pc:U0ckkD:aEyKUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

After she was diagnosed with kidney cancer, my mother was given a prescription for a daily chemotherapy pill that has been shown to extend the lives of patients with that cancer. When I went to pick up the medicine, the pharmacist asked if I had received financial counseling. No, I said, wondering why we were talking finances, not health care. Just how much is this prescription? I almost needed a doctor when she told me: The first 28 pills would cost my mother $4,607 -- a full 40 percent of her meager annual income from Social Security.

I ended up buying one week's worth -- seven pills -- giving me time to try to figure out how we could afford a month's supply of a medicine that is fully covered in England and France: Kidney cancer patients in those countries do not have to pay for the medicine my mom needed. Perhaps that's the kind of anti-American thing that Gov. Tim Pawlenty had in mind when he denounced the Obama administration's health care reform bill as a foreign measure built on a "European approach" -- you know, the funny idea that people shouldn't be bankrupted by their medical care.
My mother passed away before I had to go back to the pharmacy for more pills, dying days before the health care reform bill passed. But I doubt she would have been comforted to find out that the great reform effort would mean she would get a whopping $250 rebate on that $4,607 chemo bill, or that if she lived until 2020, the "donut hole" in her Medicare drug coverage would finally be eliminated….

…The hope of reformers here is that Minnesota can help blaze a path to universal health care in this country.

"We've lost sight of what we've been fighting for," says John Marty, a DFL state senator from Roseville who is chief author of legislation that would create something called the Minnesota Health Plan. Marty is running for governor on a strong health-care reform platform and criticizes DFLers who aren't fully committed to universal care. "If the country had approached slavery like we have approached health care," he says, "we'd still have slavery, but Democrats would be bragging that the slaves only work 40 hours a week now. We haven't fixed the problem. There will still be people dying from lack of health care, and going broke."…

…Minnesota used to be proud to lead the nation. Maybe it should take the lead again.

[glinda]

1. You listening Amy?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Some of the online comments are just vicious

especially given that they're directed at a man who is writing about his mother's death. (My comments are in there, too, under my other pseudonym, which has to do with the airline abbreviation for my former city of residence and my preferred modes of transportation.)

[dflprincess]

3. I admire your fortitude.

I just couldn't bring myself to read the comments Nick Coleman could write a column about how cute puppies are the knee jerk wingnuts would attack him for it. I made a guess that this column would really bring them out and just avoided it for the sake or my blood pressure.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. I swear, some of those people just spout whatever they've heard on the radio that day

and "laughingguy" or whatever his pseudonym is, would taunt someone who was dying in front of him.

[dflprincess]

5. I got brave and went over there

Your commments were spot on.

That "laughingguy" jerk probably prowls the streets of Minneapols looking for disabled people he can mock like his fellow Teabaggers did with the man who has Parkinsons - when he's not at home pulling the wings off flies.