Woe is my wife, the sad state of healthcare in the USA..

[Kid_Niki]

Hello, I am new to the DU forums, I have just recently passed the mark for posting to start my own thread and I wanted to start it on the issue of healthcare! Here is a letter which I recently sent to many poloticians, local, state, and national. Of course I have not gotten a response but I have to share this with as many people as I can so that they may truely understand the sad state of healthcare in this country.

My letter:

"I am sending this message to both local and federal campaigns, Democratic and Republican, in the hope that someone will respond in a meaningful way! My Name is ******, I am writing this letter out of immense frustration and despair! My wife and I are both 26, we both work hard, and we both have aspirations. *****, my wife, has had Rheumatoid Arthritis since she was 13. If you are unfamiliar with this, it is where there is swelling in the joints and if ill-treated the joints can become damaged. Unfortunately for my wife her first few doctors did not treat her correctly and she has had some damage to her wrists, ankles, and hands. Regardless of this she works every day; she gets up and tries to live as normal of a life as possible, even if she is in pain. She did not choose this, yet she lives with it, and the current medical state in this country does not make it easy!

She currently has a job as a sales person, selling high-end eyewear, her company pays for an HMO which works, although it covers very little. She is attempting to change jobs, there is an opening which pays slightly less but will take her off of her feet, and possibly give her much more room to advance. The problem is though, that once she leaves her current job, she will be without health insurance (for up to 7 months because of how the new company works) and there is not ONE insurance company that will pick her up under an individual policy. This is sad, disgusting, and wrong! She is being discriminated against for something that she has no power over, something that she did not choose. In my mind a basic FREEDOM is to have access to the same resources as any other person. Due to her illness, she is denied the same resources as a healthy person. They do not even offer an alternative! Now you may ask, “What about COBRA?” This is the route which we are forced to take, but it is hardly reasonable and for some people not even available, which at that point they have to enroll in the Kansas provided Health Insurance program. The short term insurance available through Kansas is a total joke, due to unrealistic premiums and the fact that it doesn’t realistically cover prescription drugs. This is unacceptable! We pay our taxes, we reinvest in the economy and when it comes down to being able to obtain a basic necessity, my wife is being denied!

I implore someone to do something about the current state of this country, where the almighty dollar reigns supreme. I am told all the time by coworkers how the United States was founded under Christian ideals, I hear all this talk of values in the campaigns and at the end of the day, I don’t see any of these things at work. In my mind insurance or aid should be available to those with debilitating diseases, and it should be reasonable. My wife and I have literally nowhere to turn, other than to COBRA. I thank the Lord that we can afford it, but when you add in the costs of Medications, Doctor Visits, and Labs, it is gets very thin.

John Kerry says, “Help is on the way.”

Bush says that, “We must build a modern, innovative health care system that gives patients more options.”

I ask this, “When is the help going to arrive, and in what way are the health care systems going to be reformed or rebuilt?”

The help does no good if it still costs TONS of money, and the reforms mean nothing if you can’t even get insurance in the first place! Things have to change.

Thank you for your time,

**********"

I removed my and my wife's names.

ThanX, glad to be apart of this community!