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It's been a hell of a year. Steve, my husband and best friend of 35 years, was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in April. He had surgery to remove 5 pounds of colon. They found cancer cells in one of the lymph nodes tested so he won a course of chemotherapy. He chose the most aggressive treatment available figuring that he could stand anything for 6 months. He was miserably ill with multiple side effects, lost over 40 pounds and has just completed his treatment. Partway through the treatment, his gall bladder necrotized and had to be removed.
During his chemo, he met the nicest fellow also with colon cancer. He only came for 2 treatments because that was all he could afford without bankrupting his family. He is nearly certain to die within the next year or so. He and his wife work but don't have insurance like so many Americans. He also met a woman with breast cancer in chemo whose husband walked out on her and the kids. He didn't think he could handle the cancer scene. That left her with no insurance and uninsurable. She didn't know how she could continue the treatments and was heartbroken thinking of her kids.
We were fortunate because Steve had given up his day job and was working as a partner in a startup software company-no insurance. I put him on my insurance which is one of the top ranked companies in the nation, small but good. Our out of pocket expenses were ~ $2500 for diagnosis, 2 surgeries, 2 outpatient surgeries to install a port for chemo and 6 months of chemotherapy. The bill came to over $200,000. If he had had still been working with the company in Tallahasse with "good" insurance, it would have cost us over $40,000. We tried putting the land we bought for Sheila up for sale but the bottom had fallen out of the real estate market. I must keep my job because Steve is considered uninsurable and we can't be without insurance.
Do me a favor and watch "Sicko". It will make you realize what a precarious position we are all in. This isn't welfare for the legal or illegal immigrants, or poverty families, drug addicts or welfare recipients, this is middle America with insurance. Look at with an open mind. Most of the bankruptcies in this country can be traced directly to medical issues that put them on the street. When every other civilized nation can handle universal healthcare and this country is so rich, it's unthinkable that we have so many people that qualifiy as Murdered by Spreadsheet.
I realize you think this would be too expensive to implement but consider this. Having businesses cover insurance ups their costs, making it more attractive to outsource to foreign nations leaving people here unemployed, small businesses can seldom afford to insure their employees at all, and many companies resort to using permatemps, or part-time employees so they won't qualify for benefits. By having universal health care, companies can pay more in taxes but less in healthcare benefits, people can pay more in taxes but less in money taken by their employers to cover their share of the insurance costs. People could get preventive healthcare which will cut down on expensive emergency treatments. We benefit by knowing we are fulfilling the mandate of the Preamble to the Constitution by promoting the general welfare. We reognize that there are blessings that come when we care for our fellow citizens, our neighbors, our families. We need to acknowledge that we are a nation and not just a bunch of individuals and we owe much to our country. Remember this, the American governement already pays more per capita for healthcare to cover just a portion of our citizens than any nation in Europe yet they manage to cover their entire population with comparable care for less than that.
Look at the costs of having the insurance companies as they are. We, the American people, subsidize research for the big pharma at our universities. NIH covers all the costs of developing and testing new drugs and it used to be that the drug companies couldn't make more than 20% profit on these drugs in US sales. Clinton changed that so there is no longer a limit on profits for drugs developed by the National Institute of Health They take the research, file the patents, collect the money, charge America more than any other country in the world for these medicines. They cry out that it is expensive to develop new drugs (and it is) but they spend more on promoting new drugs (24.5% of each dollar) than they do on research (13.4%). www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080105140107.htm Our government gave a massive bounty to big pharma when they exempted Medicare and Medicaid from being able to qualify for quantity discounts (by legislation) and made it illegal to purchase and import drugs from foreign countries except on a case-by-case basis (by government regulation of the FDA).
I'm voting for John Edwards because he has the best plans for healthcare coverage, education, poverty elimination, environmental issues, getting our troops out of Iraq, restoring our civil liberties and our reputation as a global neighbor. These are all issues near and dear to my heart. Go to his website www.johnedwards.com and check out his policies and how he intends to pay for them. If you are half the person I think you are, this will be an attractive candidate for you to consider.
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