Let me exhale first and dry my eyes so I can see to write this.

[Skidmore]

Today, I went into town and on the way home listened to a call-in program re: the banks and to-big-to-fail in which one of the guests appeared to not think this crash was such a huge issue and that not much needed to be done to correct for it. I was yelling at my radio so I was upset when I stopped at the village post office to pick up the mail. while there I bumped into one of the local women and visited with her a bit. This woman is middle-aged and single and shares a house with her brother--Boomers who have lived quietly in rural America going about their business and not making waves. Liberal to the core too. After she started to fill me in on what was going on with her, she started to break down into tears. This woman has seen her time at her place of employment greatly reduced over the past year and a half, and now the rumors that the place will be closed entirely seem to be acquiring more substance. Two years ago, her supervisor was caught cheating on the books and I don't want to go into a great deal of detail around this but this friend of mine got kicked sideways by the bigger boss, even though she was not responsible for her immediate supervisors actions and actually was instrumental in identifying the problem and bringing it to his attention. Because of her supervisor's actions at the time, my friend came in and worked on her own time during that period because she did not want to lose her job and the work needed to be done. All this was going at the same time her brother, a trucker, developed some health problems which prevented him from being able to do his job. He has become despondent and reclusive. She has been struggling to support both of them on reduced hours since his illness. Recently, she was diagnosed with cancer and is scheduled for surgery next month. She is panicking right now, waiting for two shoes to drop--loss of her job and her insurance coverage before she can receive the surgery. She's also trying to renegotiate her mortage and a little debt so they don't lose their home.

What can you say? There are so many of us who are struggling. My husband has had mandatory furlough days each month for the past six, and there are rumors that they will be asked to take 14 days over the next year. Grousing about your own problems, and we have them now in abundance--without debt, isn't helpful in the moment. I let her pour her heart out and sob it out. I offered to help out in any way I could. I know she won't ask and that shortly I will need to probe a little to find out how things truly are with her. These rural folks are stalwart and fiercely independent so it was something to see her break down in this way. I stayed with her for some time until she seemed to be able to focus again. She's so overwhelmed. I went back to the car to go home, thought of our situation now, and that damned guest on that radio progam. I thought of these jackasses in Congress on both sides of the aisle and what is passed off as concern and love for the people. I thought of the bullshit that passes for dialogue in our media. I thought of some of the threads I've seen on these boards. Instead, I was sobbing by the time I pulled into the driveway. I sobbed as I unloaded the car, put it away, put the groceries away, and started to prepare food for my husband so I can leave town for a few days. Right now I'm watching Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd trying to explain how a Wall Street Journal poll reflects the opinion of greater America, while I'd wager the sample pool is only to be found among those with vested interests in maintaining Wall Street. I can't stop the tears because I know what she said to me has some truth to it--"I think they are just hoping we just go away and die." So where do you all want us to go while whatever ideological utopia is created after bludgeoning all the ideological enemies?? Really. Where do you want us to go? And I don't limit considerations to the effect on those of my generation because the pain is being spread far and wide. For too many, utopias are a luxury they don't have time to ponder.

[Hello_Kitty]

1. K and R. eom

[supernova]

2. My heart goes out to you

and your friend.

:hug:

I live in a rural area also have have some of those same independent traits, so I understand completely how hard it has to be for a person to reach breaking point.

:hug:

We all deserve better than we are getting.

[Gman]

3. If Kucinich and Moore have their way, she's royaly screwed

her only hope would be immediate coverage and no disqualifications if HCR passes.

[Ignis]

6. Yeah, it's always progressives' fault, never the Chessmaster's.

:eyes:

[Sherman A1]

23. +1

Some things are just beyond explaining??????????

[GreenPartyVoter]

27. And another +1

[Ignis]

45. I'm just waiting to hear how this was all part of the Grand Plan.

:eyes:

[Ignis]

44. Hey, it sounds like a great job if you can get it:

All of the credit for the good stuff.
None of the blame for the bad stuff.

[sandnsea]

11. And if TARP hadn't passed

we'd all be in that boat and there'd be nobody to help these folks.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. If Kucinich and Moore have their way

there's a chance that the Dems will come back with a bill that offers coverage that she can actually AFFORD, with no fucking deductibles and premiums tied to INCOME, not age.

[daleanime]

31. There's a time and a place for everything...

and this is neither.






For the OP-My heart breaks, been hearing (and seeing) of far too many situations like that. Keep your head up and if we can help let us know.O8)

[grasswire]

4. culling the herd

Why do we think that the Powers That Be are above the idea that more people dying means greater profit for many corporations?

I'll bet that if private communications at the top of certain corporations were seized, we would find very clear projections of their potential savings if people simply die or live in misery because of their profit-mandated policies.

I've heard rabid conservatives say it's just necessary to cull the herd -- to get rid of those who are a financial burden. And so they ration health care, and they impoverish millions.

It's a war out there. We live and die at the whim of plutocrats.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. Thank you for this.

It's really important to see how ordinary Americans are suffering and struggling...

My heart goes out to you, and to your friend...

:hug:

[Fumesucker]

7. Words fail me.. Recced..

[Yavin4]

8. We Live In An Uncivilized, Barbaric Nation That Cares More About Money Than People

Our media, our government, and most of our politicians are bought and paid for by giant corporations. The regulators who were supposed to stop financial abuses, allowed them to happen. We can go to war at the drop of a hat, without even considering the cost, but when it comes to people, we agonize over every little penny.

[prairierose]

12. Yavin4, this is what I have been saying for years and...

most of my friends tell me I am crazy but this is what I have seen. I have watched the devolution over the years and it makes me sad but there seems to be little that I can do since so many people can not see the barbarism.

[Brewman_Jax]

29. Too true

There's always plenty of money to put people in prison or blow them to atoms, but never any to help someone that needs help--and that's sad. :(

[sandnsea]

9. But we didn't need TARP

and we don't need to remove pre-existing conditions or create a health coverage option for people who lose their jobs.

And increasing that unemployment $100 a month, and providing it for 99 weeks, well that was just shit too.

Maybe if we supported the administration instead of constantly distorting and criticizing we could make even more progress for your friend?

[eilen]

26. Respectfully, I understand your perspective

however, much has truly been pretty words with little substance. For example, the mortgage renegotiation programs -- to my knowledge many homeowners in trouble have been take for a ride and were not helped, instead were given the run around. I wish banks had to pass the muster for their TARP funds that homeowners are forced to endure. Let them get the frustrating government phone menus with a different government worker every time who puts them off for another week and never calls back or repeatedly sends the same application materials or demands information that you already sent via certified mail. Or merely gets hung up on because volumes are heavy, please call back.

The healthcare bill... well, I don't wish to get into a huge discussion because I am not fully knowledgeable about every facet (no one actually is, which is worrisome). The fact it takes 4 years just to get started doesn't help the OP's friend now.

I agree that insurance reform was needed but that does not substitute for health care reform. I work in healthcare and am, I suppose, on its front lines in an urban hospital.

The administration has been very helpful to the financial industry, the automotive industry, the military/war industry, the oil /energy industry and the insurance industry, the private education industry. It would be nice to see some more people centered policy created without the hand wringing. Our states are going under and vital services are being cut. Enough is fucking enough. To begin with: How about we stop killing people?

[The Hope Mobile]

39. + 100000

[happy_liberal]

10. It is so hard to watch so many people suffer and then see the smug asses on TV

People are so caught up in the daily struggle to survive they don't have the time to protest what is happening to them.

This is why it is imperative that all Americans that have the time and means, show up in DC, do something for your fellow Americans that are suffering.

The people that can, must stand up for the people that cannot.


Cindy Sheehan camps out on National Mall
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7928782
"We are committed to doing this until we see activity from the government," said Sheehan, referring to the anti-war protestors resolve to remain on the National Mall.

[Withywindle]

13. K & R

Thanks for sharing your friend's story and thank you for trying to help lighten her burden.

[Doremus]

14. Sometimes you have to turn it off.

Just tune out and turn off. It's not good for your health, mentally or physically, to worry all the time. Plus worrying doesn't accomplish anything.

Replace the negative with positive thoughts, whether you feel positive or not. Tell yourself you'll do something about it at some future point, just not now. Then let it go. Pamper yourself with a bubble bath and a glass of wine.

[county worker]

15. I agree with you but put on an asbestos suit here comes the flames!

[OffWithTheirHeads]

16. No flames here but I retire this year and would be happy to

teach people how to build Guillotines in my spare time!

[Hubert Flottz]

25. Know anything about water boards or Jesus Scopes?

I learned to fix battle tanks in the Army. Got a surplus M-60 or an M-113 that needs a tune up?

Does a water board work better with or without water softeners?

[Canuckistanian]

17. THESE are the people that Wall St. is making their money from

I think we should ALL start pulling our assets from big banks. Stop using Credit Cards. Put our money in local Credit Unions.

And BUY LOCAL. Invest in your neighbors. Keep your money in your local community. Patronize your businesses. Or think about starting your own.

It's about time we returned to small, localized economies. It worked for a hundred years, no need to evaluate it's effectiveness.

Big corporate interests are killing us. It's fine when they can offer employment, safe investments and quality products.

But when they go under, it affects MILLIONS.

[The Straight Story]

18. K&R - thanks for this post (nt)

[DisgustedInMN]

19. I wish I could offer words of hope..

.. but I can't, the last vestiges of believing that any hope is even possible have been ripped from me by what I have seen unfold since Nov 4, 2008. We have been systematically lied to, ignored, laughed at, disrespected, stolen from, and just plain treated like we have no value.

A storm is brewing. A big, ugly, storm.

[Hekate]

20. KnR {{{{Skidmore}}}}

No words, just :hug:

Hekate

[JCMach1]

21. Your post is a great antidote to Washington JACKASSERY

[JNelson6563]

22. How many of us are a hair's breadth from this? Too many.

Like many I have no insurance. If something went wrong with my health I could not afford a diagnosis much less treatment. I would be one of the ones who would just have to go off and die somewhere.

Julie

[Hubert Flottz]

24. "Wall Street Journal poll "

And who was it that bought the Wall Street Journal about a year ago?

The Wall Street Journal was a CORPORATE MEGAPHONE before brother Rupert took it over. Now it's even less credible. The new FOX/Wall Street Journal is for all intents and purposes a sly FOX reporting the "facts" the way Rupert sees it.

Chuck Todd and Andrea are about as right wing as Andrea's husaband Allan GreedSpin and brother Rupert are.

[BEZERKO]

30. I used to live in a small town called Lone Oak in the northern part of Meriweather County,

To the south, some twenty or thirty miles in the same county is Warm Springs Ga. I think a lot about what it must have been like for FDR to ride the train south through Atlanta and through College Park, Ga. (a road beside the tracks between College Park and Union City Ga. is called Roosevelt Hwy.) on it's way toward Warm Springs. There still isn't much in Meriwether County, and durring that time, it must have been very undeveloped. Very rural and sparsely populated. I'm certain it had to influence his political views. Anyway, when I started helping local candidates, I ran into a lot of people like the one you talked about. I was riding with some new friends I'd met working for a State Senate candidate as a volunteer and drove by a abandoned textile plant. They're everywhere in the central and Western part of the state. You can't help but think of the people, families, who worked in that plant, and it makes you sad.

[change_notfinetuning]

32. First thing is to completely divorce health care from employment. It came

about by accident many years ago, and to this day, accident trumps logic and reason in health care policy.

[blm]

33. ( ) Skid.

.

[pundaint]

34. Making things worse is a bad idea. The bill before congress guarantees pain for some while

alleviating it for others. The emotional arguments put forth right now are just the manipulation of a fatigued electorate by a cynical congress, in the ultimate service of for-profit health insurance companies. The OP's pain is real and pressing, but so is that of those arbitrarily excluded by this bill.

We recoil when our enemies used women and children as shields in warfare. Well, guess what, the Democratic Leadership are using the same approach to this bad legislation.

Don't give the Insurance Industry an extra $70 Billion and "We'll do Nothing" to save these specific individuals. This ignores the 4-year wait, the 10 million-plus who will not even be included in this bill, and the millions more who will ultimately be denied healthcare because this legislation sets the foundation for a cost spiral with no brakes.

Compassionate thinkers need to see through this extortion, and demand a better bill.

[Skidmore]

36. Doing nothing at all after expending so much energy is an even worse

idea. Do you really think that after the past year, healthcare reform would be revisited in any meaningful way in the immediate future? I don't think so. Get it on the table. We've spent 70 years to get to this point. Shall we have pissed all this work away for another century?

[ChiciB1]

43. Still, The Problem That Isn't Being Talked About Is HOW MUCH It May Cost

to have insurance that can't be denied because of pre-existing conditions. I have YET to hear HOW MUCH it will cost for that luxury! I'm betting that even IF this is a law, the insurance companies or powers that be, will be charging a hefty fee for this. Or even if there will be FULL coverage given!

I "may" have missed it, but I haven't seen/heard about cost regulations on insurance companies and the like for extending benefits! Not only that, the time frame is down the road and it worries me that THESE very same people won't STOP trying to gouge anyone they can!

I go to one doctor who has decided not to take ANY insurance anymore, especially Medicare! He used to have 4 office workers and took Medicare and other insurance. Now he will only accept cash and has ONE office worker. Granted his fees now are a "little" smaller, and I have to file my own insurance claim, but I'm wondering how long it will be before many other doctors follow him. Plus, when you go out of network and you are told you will only have to pay 30%, that's not actually true! The re-reimbursement you get is ONLY 30% of what the insurance company deems allowable! Are there any provisions in this HCR that addresses this problem? I haven't seen/heard that either. But I HAVEN'T read the whole thing, but the WHOLE thing has yet to be presented! I think we are walking with blinders on to some extent! Guess I'm just a cynical pessimist! Never was before, but now... well s--t happens!

Both my daughter & son-in-law are critical care nurses and tell me many stories that are VERY SCARY! Won't go into them now, but "trust" isn't something I feel about HCR right now! If you only get 40% of a bill paid by insurance, and that bill is in the thousands, what good will it do?

And to say they will re-visit and improve is something I don't have much faith in. NAFTA comes to mind!

Just thinking and wondering how GOOD this is going to work out!!

[Mercuryman]

35. K&R eom

[Fire1]

37. And I thought I had it bad. n/t

[FirstLight]

38. I *so* identfy with you, on so many levels

Story after story, and mine included, in the flotsam & jetsam of the powerhungry. A wake of destruction and we are the ones left struggling for **survival** <--- not a word you would expect to see when describing American life?

What gets me is that there are so many, even here on a 'progressive' board, who think somehow these circumstances are our fault -that somehow we failed to play by the rules or decided to be beggars. And it is worse in our American culture, this hatred of those in need. (damn puritan work ethic!)

So many of these stories,should be more humbling you would think...the failing society and systems are hitting more & more of us who never had to ask for help. I have a client who is a boomer and she is struggling to keep her home, and she was a conscientous investor and saver, has a masters in social work...but it isn't even about a job for her, her PRACTICE is drying up, because people can't pay for therapy! (and everyone is so messed up in their emotions and head because the rest of the world is falling down around us..)

crazy world, I wish I knew what the answer was - I keep hoping for some balance to come, but it seems like everywhere I look - people are off the deep end.

[juajen]

40. I don't pretend to have any answers, because I have my own story.

I know the situation is desperate for millions of people. Three of my five grown children are unemployed, one with children, including an infant which she stays home to care for herself. Fortunately, her husband and one of her grown children are still employed, so she stays above water.

One of my children stays home with me to help me financially and also to make our money go further. We have no leftover funds to help my two homeless children, both male without families, though this is the most heartbreaking of all. They have worked since they were 15 years of age. They have paid taxes out the wazoo, and now find themselves no longer needed because of the downturn in construction and the general recession. Both are skilled, or once were. I'm afraid most of their meager funds are going to alcohol and or pot. They live in another state, one that is devastated with unemployment and lack of resources for the poor and unemployed. Without unemployment extentions, they would have given up much quicker.

I cannot live with alcoholics, so neither can travel home. I've gone that route and I cannot be an enabler for them to consume alcohol and drugs, but their situation is heartbreaking for me, and is constant stress on my health. They both need a rehab facility, but neither will go unless forced and I have no means to force them.

We are the invisible to the rich and corporate slave drivers. They really could care less what happens to us.

My hope is that we will get additional clinics for the poor and uninsured, so that at least my boys can get medical help.

I believe that alcoholism could be cured if the moneyed alcohol interests were not preventing or hiding the latest advancements, of which I get hints all the time, but nothing definitive. Booze is truly tearing up this country and the money spent on it could probably feed all of the poor.

In short, I am very discouraged over the status quo in our beloved country today, and cannot see a way out of the fog. Sorry to be such a downer.

[ChiciB1]

41. Can't Be A "Downer" If The REALITY Is What It Is!! While I Consider Myself

LUCKY, and I DO MEAN LUCKY because we still have our head above water for now, but we don't make much money. A lot less than most people I know. Still, I tried never to over-spend and always looked for good deals at yards sales, etc. Not that I don't understand what's happened to so many people who did the same thing, but because of job losses or other situations now find themselves being pushed out and forgotten! I'm knocking on wood right now!

I can recall my mother-in-law telling me that I could squeeze the S--t out of the buffalo on a nickel, but now I consider that a compliment! I can't tell you how many years I've been totally upset by our "throw away" society! Ronnie Ray-Guns and his philosophy made too many fall for the idea that "you can have it all" and many wanted the gold ring.

HOWEVER, that "trickle down" NEVER happened and too many people who worked hard and saved and didn't fall for his foolishness are now paying because too many others SCREWED America!

I too have friends and neighbors who have lost almost everything and it breaks my heart!

Just one more thing... SKIDMORE? Are there TWO Skidmores here?? I'm confused.

[sulphurdunn]

42. Class Warfare

It's not a big deal and not much needs to be done when you're winning.