LTTE of Orlando Sentinel "Society's Helpless"

[iamjoy]

This is not me. When I read it, I almost cried.

LETTER:
We are the working poor -- those of us who work day in and day out at low-paying jobs, people who have no health benefits, who cannot afford health insurance, yet make a few dollars over the arbitrary limits set for medical assistance from state or local governments, thus rendering us to deal with serious health issues alone.

With this latest action, many people believe that God has answered their prayers concerning Schiavo. Perhaps he has, I don't know. I do know that Congress has decided that people like my husband, families like mine, are not worthy of protection. If they, and the good bishop, truly believe in the right to life, then they would campaign hard and long to ensure that affordable health insurance and affordable health care were realities, not political slogans.

If they believed in the right to life, then Congress and the good bishop would take up the cause of my husband's need for cancer treatment in the same way they have latched onto Terri Schiavo. But I know this won't happen -- the feeding tube will be reinserted in Terri Schiavo, and the tumor in my husband will continue to grow and grow until it claims his life.

(end of letter)

Link: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/letters/orl-edple23032305mar23,1,6758347.story?coll=orl-opin-letters-headlines

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letter at bottom of page

[Pacifist Patriot]

1. Wow

[salin]

2. Powerful

and tragic, and an increasingly common situation. The rate at which employers are dropping health care coverage ... this could be one of so many of us.

[iamjoy]

3. Before This Letter I Wondered....

all this business to save Terri Schiavo, whose care is paid by tax dollars, this from the same people who would slash such dollars.

And they won't support universal health coverage.

So, let's take a diabetic child. No health insurance. They won't help that child (or parents) manage the condition. But should the child go into glycemic shock and fall into a coma and be declared brain dead, these people will fight like hell to continue the child's existance.

Do they only value life if it is in the womb or needs some manner of assistance to continue in its basic functions?

[salin]

4. that seems to be the case - but I don't think the latter is true

universally - or they wouldn't be so quick to keep making vital medications cost so much that pushes some people into this condition - and as long as there is no media circus - they don't seem to care.