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My Health Care Horror Story: My entire family suffers for their profit

by: MinistryOfTruth

Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 09:14:00 PDT        
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( - promoted by buhdydharma )

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    My father committed suicide over 13 years ago. If he had gotten mental health care maybe it would not have been so.

    My mother had a stroke 2 years ago. When she first felt a shock in her arm she went to a doctor. The doctor told her "Change your lifestyle." They did not take more tests than the first one. Two weeks later she had a massive stroke. She is diabled and paralyzed on her left upper body to this day.

   My Grandmother (my fathers mother) is 75. Her basic insurance eats up more than a third of her retirement income. Her mortgage eats one half and her medication eats up the rest.

   My step uncle (my fathers half brother) is chronically sick with liver problems and suffers from mental health problems. He is in the hospital right now with gallstones. He suffers from intense paranoia, depression and other mental disorders.

   My sister suffers from anxiety and depression because of my fathers tragic death. She was only 6 when it happened. Now she is 20. I want her to find help, and I need the same help myself. Neither of us can afford it. We need reform NOW, for health care, both physical and mental.

   This fight for Health Care Reform is VERY personal for me. I will not back down, and neither should you.

MinistryOfTruth :: My Health Care Horror Story: My entire family suffers for their profit
     Simply put, our for profit Medical/Insurance/Complex is destroying my lower-middle class family. I have a huge stake in this fight, and I will not back down, not now, not ever.

    I myself am uninsured. I have not been to a doctor for a check up for years. I get depressed in cycles and have shared my story with others in this community before. This is not about politics, but aboput families. This is not about money, but about people.

   If I get sick or hurt I am totally screwed.

   None of us can afford private insurance right now. We NEED A PUBLIC OPTION to break up the Monopolies of Private for-profit insurers.

   And I am not alone. There are 47+ million more just like me.

   And there are over 100 million more Americans who pay too much for insurance that can be taken away just when they need it the most.

   Therefore, I propose a running diary series by anyone who wishes to tell their personal Health Care Horror Story.

My Health Care Horror Story

  In the spirit and tradition of the IGTNT series and the GUS series, among other and many fine DKos traditions, I propose a series of diaries that detail the very personal costs that our for-profit health care system takes from American families in order to give profits to the Medical/Insurance/Complex.

  This can not continue. We need drastic reform now.

  Such a series should continue until we get that reform.

  And we should share our stories and e-mail them to the White House and our Congressmembers.

Simply begin your diary with the words My Health Care Horror Story

   And then share your tale and state how reform can help you and your loved ones, as well as our nation.

    DKos user War on Error and I had a conversation yesterday that inspired this idea, and I would like to give that user all the credit that is due.

Also, here's the seed of an idea.  Can you get it passed up to Kos?

I would like to see hundreds of diaries whose titles begin with:

HORROR HEALTH STORY:  Name of Insurer or Uninsured

Then the Intro be a brief overview of how the insured has been abused and suffers.  Their story.  The more personal a story is, the more others can relate to it.

The Body can be a brief listing of their out of pocket
expenses or something.


If each of these real life horror stories, and it sounds like you have three in your family alone, BEGINS with the same three words:  HEALTH HORROR STORY
It will be easy to use the "search stories and diaries" to bring up a list of them.  Search:  "Health Horror Story"

Also, google will crawl and pick up the title.  The whole world will be able to look in.  It won't hurt Kos's bottom line for sure!

Imagine hundreds even thousands turning up in the search.  We can invite even non dkos players to sign on and share.  A center for collecting everyone's stories.  This is a service that is lacking!

DKos is making network, cable news lately.  I think this would get some attention, especially if we all make comments elsewhere (FDS, HP, NYT, WaPo), etc inviting people to come and check them out, and even contribute.

We can collect thousands of Health Horror Stories under this one roof.

What do you think of this idea?  Someone with more clout/rank than WoE could launch this invitation for people to share.  Even Kos!

Naive perhaps, but I believe if even the most hard hearted read these they will soften their hearts so a policy to care for all Americans can eventually become the law in America.

Thanks for listening.

    My tweak to this idea is to make the title of the series My Health Care Horror Story, so as to keep it personal, but, otherwise I think this idea is spot on and brilliant.

    There are hundreds of reasons why we MUST pass health care reform this year, many of which have already been articulated by our President and other Demcratic members of congress.

    But, the point is that We The People have to speak up, fight back and Yell Louder. We need to be heard. I hope this is one way to do so.

    Had affordable and easy to access health and metal health care been available perhaps my father would still be with me. Perhaps my mother would not have had a stroke Perhaps my uncle and sister would be better capable of dealing with their mental health issues. Perhaps my Grandmother would be able to enjoy her well earned retriement better. Perhaps my entire life would have been entirely different.

   I do not know where this ends. But I know where it must begin.

   It must begin NOW. With meaningful reform that keeps health insurers honest and breaks up their regional monopolies with a Robust Public Option, end of life counseling and everything else working American families have been denied by our For-profit health care system.

   We MUST start putting people before profit, and only true reform can do that for us.

   Because, if we do not, and I or one of my loved ones gets sick or hurt, we are screwed.

   And that is what this fight is for.

   No excuses.

Thank you for your time,

MoT

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Tips for making this fight Personal (4.00 / 11)

I will NOT back down, and neither should you.

Please, share your Health Care Horror Story, and title your diary My Health Care Horror Story. Let's e-mail this out and get a lot of different perspectives on the tubes, as a testimony to how personal this fight is, and how badly we need reform NOW!

Cheers

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?' - 1984


Creating a good health care system that works for all (4.00 / 7)
SHOULD be the only way for Congressional reps (and presidents and their chiefs of staff) to keep enjoying good health (politically and metaphorically speaking, of course).

They are now losing the unions. No time or money donations, and no votes in 2010 unless health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act are passed.

Posted on YouTube by SheetMetalWorkers, August 11, 2009

   Signalling a shift within the labor movement, the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka praises Democrats in Washington those who have stood by working people.

   He goes on to warn those who have wavered on labor and health care reform about the consequences of stabbing working people in the back and vows labor will not forget their actions.



LIHOP (4.00 / 5)
by this I refer not to 9/11, but to fucking up on purpose.

If the Dems blow this it will be proof that they are not seriosu about anything, but just serve as a prop to the Corporatist GOP.

I am seriously thinking about ditchingg the US altogether if they fuck this up.

Vote GOP = 100% GOP
Vote Dem = 50% GOP

WTF?

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?' - 1984


[ Parent ]
The dems never had any intention of passing reform (4.00 / 2)
The game was rigged long before. It is a bit of political theater to manipulate the public. There is no real debate because nobody is talking about the fundamental facts.

The Democratic Party could be an avenue for change but the Obama fraud makes that impossible at the moment. The progressive wing needs to wake up and find mythos (a story) that makes sense and has some sound intellectual underpinning.

Visit me at Sacred Bells


[ Parent ]
Well, I'll tell you what (4.00 / 2)
if the Dems find a way to squander this onne with all of their majorities it WWILL be time for a new party, or at least a STRONG and COHESIVE voting bloc within the Dem party that pushes out the BlueDog/Corprocrats in the Dmes.

At the end of the day I think the Obama team is going to do the right thing, but we really need a plan B if they don't

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?' - 1984


[ Parent ]
plan B (4.00 / 3)
always has to be organizing a new party. This party should be separate from the Democratic Party but aligned with it since the two party system is pretty much written in stone at least for the next few election cycles.  

Visit me at Sacred Bells

[ Parent ]
We can't just be talking about this. (4.00 / 2)
We need to create a new historic bloc...

"Mientras el trabajo sea una comodidad, un mecanismo de extracción de plusvalía y un arma de alienación, el sistema y sus miserias sobrevivirán."  -Peter McLaren

[ Parent ]
Sadly, alliance of GOP'ers + Blue Dogs (GOP'er Dogs) +corporate (4.00 / 3)
"moderate" Dems outnumber the Progressive Dems.  Those that have been bought off by the insurance co's, etc (and apparently that appears to be a majority of them) will do as the health care industries tell them to do--they want to keep that money rolling in to themselves.  Obama apparently at this point just wants to get a "Health Care Reform Bill" passed, regardless of what that final bill looks like, IMHO.  I think he's decided that the GOP'ers/Blue Dogs (Republicans claiming to be Dems)/Baccus & CO--IOW, all critters employed by the Insurers--aren't going to do what's right--so to save face for himself after promising to get Health Care Reform, as a politician, he'll take what he can get & call it a victory.

But, IMHO, this is just Round One of the fight.  It's taken a long time to get things this far, and it will take longer still to get it the way it should be, so we need to keep fighting the good fight.

 


[ Parent ]
Are you suggesting (4.00 / 5)
doing a series here too?  Or just posting them at kos?

Lots of health horror stories from my family and friends.


Here, there, anywhere (4.00 / 3)
Just as long as it starts with Health Care Horror Story it doesn't matter where it gets posted, just that the title gets bumped up to the top of any google search.

I don't think this is really an individual series, just a compliation of the personal price thies horror stories have on individual families.

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?' - 1984


[ Parent ]
MoT, I will do this... (4.00 / 1)
...I just don't work as fast as you young dogs!

Thanks for keepin' on keepin' on!

The fierce urgency of now.  Martin


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