It's hard to believe that Senator Claire McCaskill just said on Fox News that she'll vote against the health care bill if it doesn't cut the deficit.
Maybe, if she had taken the time to see what her constituents in Missouri endure, she'd be a whole lot more careful before she makes statements like this. Or perhaps, we need to put Claire McCaskill right up there with Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman -- all of whom should face serious primaries.
Late in the afternoon of the second day of the Kansas City Free Health Clinic, there was a long line of patients without appointments. Nicole Lamoureux, the executive director of the National Association of Free Health Clinics, and her team were doing everything humanly possible to accommodate everyone, but the clinic was operating above capacity for all those with scheduled appointments.
I met a heartbroken Nicole while I was videotaping the people patiently waiting and hoping to get in.
"We've been here for two days and it's just not enough, we're doing the best we can and it's just not enough".
The New York Times needs to start covering this catastrophe in a more enlightened way. Would you please take a moment to forward this diary or your own letter or comment about the Third World conditions within the continental United States to the paper of record? The Times needs to be bombarded with emails. It's not enough to have Bob Herbert write on the editorial page. This must be covered on Page One above the fold. Here's how to do it.
It's hard to convey the heartbreak I witnessed at every bend in the road while I was at the Kansas City Free Health Clinic, so I'll let the people I met tell you their stories. This morning the Los Angeles Times has yet another story of an out of work American struggling to make the exorbitant COBRA payments month-after-month.NEWS DEPARTMENT
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Most of the people I met were working people. Eighty-three percent of the people who come to these clinics are employed. But over and over and over, I heard about unaffordable junk insurance, unaffordable premiums, obscene co-pays. During these very difficult economic times, the choice always comes down to food, clothing, and heat or insurance and health care. I also repeatedly heard people say that when they had insurance, they still got stuck with the bills, so what's the point of having insurance? Yes, we all know about that scam.
Then Nicole, who moments earlier had been unable to control her emotions about the people she always refers to as "my patients," had to break the sad, sad news that the clinic simply could not accommodate anyone else.
Victoria Moss - laid off from Citibank. Doesn't want a handout. Needs a mammogram.
Good people like Rand Hodson, who is self-employed and uninsurable, had to be turned away. Rand has had two heart attacks but has no insurance, no medication and no doctor.
Nicole Abel (turn the sound up for this one). Type 1 diabetes, no job, no insurance. Her family held a fundraiser for her. Raised about $3,000 for her health care needs.
"I'm constantly on the phone looking for help."
Don't be fooled.
Almost everyone at these clinics are hard working Americans, or certainly Americans who want to work and had been working until the corruption on Wall Street brought this country and the economy to its knees.
Working Americans like Carol Dale, who just cannot afford the outrageous premium for herself and her daughter.
And this should make all but the most affluent Americans tremble, because today it's them, tomorrow it could be one of us.
Gina Williams works for Hilton Hotels has three children. One has sickle cell anemia and this child has state insurance, but her other two children aren't covered. Her mother is a federal employee with unaffordable junk insurance.
"We're dying slowly ... We're dying slowly."
Meet Diandria Pigese.
Even this vast 120,000 square foot convention center could not accommodate all those in need.
And I'll leave you with this. The Line. At 5PM, about an hour or so before I found out that some without appointments would be turned away.
Follow Eve "nyceve" Gittelson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/http://twitter.
We need to do away with this PRIVILEGE for our "representatives" in Congress. Let these wealthy, HEALTHY senators and reps find their coverage the way all the rest of us have to and see how many see the light!
It's becoming a third world nation very fast.
A country of the haves vs. the have nots.
The rich vs. the poor.
Every man, woman, and child for themselves.
Don't buy anything from corporate america. To heck with them.
REFUSE
REDUCE
REUSE
RECYCLE
They need to pass a Healthcare bill that they themselves are going to have to live and abide by. No more privilage.
Why dont more elected officials show up to these things? My God, it's heartbreaking! Why doesn't Obama drop by? Where is the man I helped elect? Obviously, Washington has theirs (coverage) - so screw the rest of us. It makes me sick to my stomach. THEY ALL make me utterly sick.
...........EVERY SENATOR AND CONGRESSMAN SHOULD SPEND TIME IN THESE CLINICS HELPING OUT BEFORE, YES, BEFORE THEY CAST THEIR VOTE.
THEY ARE TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS TO OUR DILEMMA.
We have allowed the system to really screw us. The motto for the country should be "A Fool and his Money are Easily Parted" and we are all the fools for electing bozos who are just there to help those who want to help us part with our money and enrich themselves. That is why 90% of the wealth in this country is owned by 5% of the population.
The system is corrupt throughout. There are no longer investigative reporters trying to get to the bottom of the culprits that caused the financial ruin of this country. Apparently, the news is more concerned with Maddoff who screwed some investors rather than track down those princes of Wall Street that screwed the entire country. The corporations own most of the news media outlets and control what information is put out there. We do NOT have an independent press any longer.
We have no one to blame for this mess except ourselves because we allow ourselves to be treated like uninformed ignorant sheep.
Not one politician has turned up at these clinics. I am sure they are not worried about re-election, they have been promised jobs by their masters, the health ins companies.
This situation exposes the myth of competition, big business will do whatever it takes to maintain its noncompetitive behavior. How else can they continue to gouge the public with impunity?
We need a new Congress, one that is not indebted to big business and one that takes seriously its constitutional mandate to "promote the general Welfare" not the Welfare of the elites. And the elites have taken control, rewritten the law to benefit themselves and to grab the taxpayers’ money in the form of bailouts.
Talk about the "Founders Intent". Please!
Good health is a RIGHT, not a priviledge.
Are any one of these beautiful people, GOD'S BELOVED CHILDREN, for Chrissake, who are LESS IMPORTANT than, say, Joe Lieberman?
NFW, I say.
The trouble is we have voted the wrong people in -- people who are owned by corporate America or people totally gutless -- in NJ we have John Adler -- who has to go in the next election.