Today, I will be joining a handful of state legislators representing more than 1,000 colleagues in meeting President Obama today at the White House at 9:30 a.m. Arizona time. I will also meet with Senators and Congressional leaders throughout the day, bringing the message to Capitol Hill and the White House of broad-based support from the states for real health reform.
I know that President Obama understands that state leaders are asking for federal health reform that assures quality, affordable health care for all, and that Americans, including right here in Arizona, deserve better than the status quo.
Which is why I want to know the reasons why you support health reform. Feel free to tweet me your reasons, post a video response or write them on my Facebook wall.
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ReplyDeleteActually I'll post it as a comment right here.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of reasons I support health care reform, but what has been happening to a woman who has been a friend of our family for years is a good enough reason (story is here:)
She took her young children (the oldest is five) out for a walk. Two pit bulls had gotten out and attacked her children. Having no choice, Candi volunteered to take the attack herself. She would be dead now if another of my neighbors, Jim Edwards (a former cop,) hadn't realized twenty minutes into the attack what was going on and beaten the dogs off of her with a piece of a bedframe. I blogged about the attack here (on a mixed blog.)
Candi is uninsured. ACCCHS paid for her to be airlifted to the hospital and has picked up some other costs (she spent a full week in the hospital) but Candi still owes thousands of dollars and faces thousands of dollars more in surgeries. A community fundraiser raised $3000 but she will still owe a lot more (hard to say how much, but it is a lot.) Today I talked to her and she told me that the latest is that in March or April she will undergo open heart surgery because the dog attack exacerbated a congenital heart murmur she had and it is now life-threatening.
Her mother told me that they tried to look into a civil suit but the dog owner is broke and in prison, the home is uninsured and there is no one who they could sue who would have a dime to pay them, so that option is also closed.
My problem is this: My friend did absolutely nothing to provoke this attack. It happened while she was taking a walk down the street with her kids. There is no reason in hell why with all the rehabilitation, surgery and other things she has to go through due to something that was in no way her fault and could happen to anybody (including psychotherapy for her children, who were traumatized watching their mother get ripped apart in front of them) she should have to worry about how to pay for any of it.
Sorry about the length of this comment but this woman is a friend of ours who used to baby sit my children when they were younger, and this really summarizes why we need health care reform NOW. In any other country in the world if this happened the last thing she would have to worry about would be how to pay for it. Things like this are much more frustrating to watch when they are happening to someone you know.